A Fool To Think
by psych21
Summary: Martin and Samantha meet ten years after a bitter breakup. Both have emotional scars from their earlier relationship and aren't happy to find that they will now be working together. Will they be able to find a way to work together in peace? Or are they fo
1. It's You

A Fool To Think

Chapter One

"Hey Danny, Vivian." Martin greeted with a big smile as he came into the bullpen and settled at his desk. He had joined the team two years ago when their last teammate had her third child and decided to become a stay-at-home mother. Before coming to New York he had been stationed in Seattle working in the White Collar department. He never felt like he belonged in Seattle though. Sure he had plenty of friends there and enjoyed his work. But there was always something missing, and he knew what that was.

Love. It had been almost ten years since he'd graduated from college and almost every one of his friends from college were married. Most of the fraternity brothers he never thought would ever settle down had already found wives and started families. Some were already experiencing the birth of their second children. And he was simply alone.

When he came to New York, he vowed to start fresh. He promised himself that he would shed all of the painful memories of the past and forget the face of the woman who haunted his dreams. He would move on and find a new love. So far though, that hadn't happened. He was still haunted by that woman's face and assaulted by memories of his time with her, making it impossible for him to move on.

Although he hadn't found love here in New York yet, he didn't feel as out of place here as he had in Seattle. Vivian, Danny, Jack and Megan had become like a second family to him, immediately making him feel like a close friend that they had known for years.

Unfortunately, now Megan had transferred to the Counter-Terrorism Unit, leaving them with an empty spot on the team. He was happy for her because he knew that her first choice in assignment had always been Counter-Terrorism. They were all happy for her but couldn't help being sad that their friend was leaving the team.

"Hey Martin." Danny greeted back, barely looking up from his computer to glance at his friend.

"How was your weekend Martin?" Vivian asked, walking over to Martin's desk. She had taken an immediate liking to Martin when he joined the team. Although he had very little experience in Missing Person's because of his White Collar background, he seemed to have a big heart and a desire to help.

Her first instincts about him were right. He was dedicated to helping people and was one of the kindest men she had ever met. Danny always teased that Martin was a boy scout but it was true. Martin was one of the last few remaining gentlemen in the world.

She often wondered why it was so hard for him to find someone to love. He would go on dates and then always find something wrong with the woman. Her eyes were too close together, her ears were too big, she wasn't smart enough. The list of possible reasons he dismissed women was longer than a young child's Christmas list to Santa Claus.

He found reasons to dismiss the woman after the first date. Was there a reason for that defense mechanism? Was there a woman in his past that had broken his heart, making it harder for him to open up to other women? Was he scared of something? She'd likely never know because he always shied away from that topic when asked.

"It was fine." Martin shrugged.

"Did you do anything fun?" Vivian asked.

"Not really." He shook his head. "Just sat around my apartment. I did however have a very interesting appointment with my toilet and a cleaning brush."

"Sounds riveting." She smiled at his attempt of humor. "But didn't you have a date Friday night? It was with Bethany from human resources, right?" She saw him nod and continued on with her line of questioning. "So how did it go?"

He made the kind of face a child makes when they eat something they don't like. "I don't think it will work out between us."

Vivian sighed. She was sure that this date would be the one to break through the one-date barrier, but apparently she was wrong. "Why not?"

"Let me guess." Danny rolled his chair over to Martin's desk and intruded on the conversation. "Either she chewed her food loudly or her arms were too flabby. Am I right?"

"No." Martin shook his head.

"Ok then." Danny smirked. "What was wrong with her?"

"There was nothing wrong with her, per se." Martin protested.

"There had to be something bad that you noticed. You always come up with an excuse about why you don't want to date these wonderful women." Danny explained.

"I do not." Martin objected.

"You do too." Danny assured him. "Martin, man, I don't understand you. Most of the women in this office would give anything to go out on a date with you, even some of the married ones, but you don't give them the time of day. Then when you finally do, you find some minor little flaw and drop them like a hot potato!"

"I don't do that." Martin defended himself. "And besides, Bethany didn't have a minor little flaw. I couldn't have an intellectual conversation with her. It was impossible to talk about anything that didn't have to do with movies, television, music, fashion or celebrities. I can't be with a woman if I can't have a real conversation with her."

"It's like you're looking for the perfect woman." Vivian pointed out. "And I hate to disappoint you Martin, but there is no such thing."

Yes there is. He thought to himself. He had met the perfect woman for him. He had met her, fell in love with her, planned a life with her, and then lost her. But then again, maybe he never really had her to begin with. Maybe she was never really his.

"You have to lighten up a bit." Danny advised. "Or else you'll continue to find fault with every woman you go out with and then end up alone and bitter."

"Gee thanks for that advise." He said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"It's just something to think about." Danny shrugged. "On a brighter note, our new team member is starting today."

"Oh yeah." Vivian smiled. "Today is the day that we find out who Megan's replacement is."

"I think I already saw her earlier before you got here Viv." Danny grinned.

"Her?" Martin asked. "It's a her?"

"Oh I definitely hope so." Danny chuckled. "I didn't get a good look at her because she was walking fairly quickly into Jack's office, but I did see enough to know that this is one hot blonde."

"So she's a blonde?" Vivian asked.

"Yeah." Danny nodded. "So that means that she's in no danger of falling prey to Martin's one-date barrier since he avoids all blondes like the plague." He turned to face Martin. "By the way, why is that?"

"I don't avoid blondes." Martin denied it but it was the truth. He avoided blondes at all cost because of her. She was a blonde—a beautiful blonde. He used to love running his fingers through her silky hair when they laid in bed together…

He shook himself out of thoughts, mentally berating himself for thinking about her again. It would be easier for him to move on if he just quit thinking about her and the time they had spent together. But that was easier said than done.

Danny could tell that he wasn't going to get any more information out of his friend and shrugged.

While they had been talking, Jack came out of his office with the new agent right behind him. He approached the rest of the team and cleared his throat to get their attention. "As you all know, we have a new agent joining us today to replace Megan."

Martin didn't bothering looking over at Jack or the new agent while he gave him speech, instead focusing on the paperclip that he was bending in his hands.

"She's joining us from the Florida branch." He pointed to the woman standing next to him. "I'd like to introduce you all to Samantha Spade."

As soon as Martin heard that name, he froze. Jack had to be kidding, right? There was no way that Samantha was their new teammate. If he turned around to meet her, he wouldn't see a beautiful blonde. He would see some other woman who happened to have the same name, right? Maybe a plump redhead or an older brunette? Of course Samantha Spade wasn't a very common name and he doubted that there were two women in the FBI with that same name.

"I want you all to give her the same kind of welcome that you received." Jack told them. Then he pointed to the rest of the team. "This is Danny Taylor, Vivian Johnson, and Martin Fitzgerald."

She slowly swallowed the huge lump in her throat that had formed when she walked out of Jack's office with him and saw Martin. At least she saw someone that looked a lot like him. But she had been hoping that her mind was just playing tricks on her again. Over the past ten years she had seen Martin in many different places. She'd see him in movie theaters, parks, coffee shops, and grocery stores Her mind was always subconsciously thinking about him and then manifesting itself into delusions of seeing him.

She was hoping that this time was no different. She wanted this to just be a delusion. But when she heard Jack introduce him, she knew that she had to admit that she was wrong. She was now officially a part of the same team as Martin. The same Martin that she had been so heavily involved with during her last year and a half of college. The same Martin that she had dumped. The same Martin that she alternately loved and hated depending on what day of the week it was.

This wasn't good. She couldn't see any possible way that this could turn out well. He obviously would recognize and remember her; after all they had shared together it was impossible to hope that he wouldn't. But how were they supposed to work together after everything that had happened between them?

"It's nice to meet you." Vivian smiled, shaking Samantha's hand.

"Yeah, it's very nice to meet you." Danny did the same thing as Vivian.

"Thank you." Sam smiled back at them. "I look forward to getting to know you all." She noticed that Martin couldn't even bring himself to look at her and that was fine with her. She hoped to delay the conversation they were likely to have for as long as possible.

Danny slugged Martin in the shoulder. "Martin, man, aren't you going to welcome the new girl?"

As soon as he heard her voice he sighed heavily. He didn't even have to look over at her to know that it was the same Samantha Spade that he'd been trying in vain to move on from for the past decade. Hearing that sweet voice of hers was enough to prove it to him.

"Sorry." Martin didn't even look over at her. "Hi." He said curtly, picking up a file folder and starting to write feverishly. Maybe if he kept writing, he would wake up and this would just be a dream—a very bad dream. Because as much as he missed her, he was beyond furious with her and didn't want to have to see her everyday at work.

"He's not usually like that." Danny apologized to Samantha. "Usually he has much better manners."

"Don't worry about it." Sam assured Danny, stealing a glance at Martin. "I'm used to dealing with guys like him."

Danny could tell that something was going on between Martin and the new girl, although he had no idea what it was. But Martin was always kind to everyone and always had good manners. The fact that he was being impolite to Samantha spoke volumes. Did they know each other from somewhere?

Jack had mentioned that Samantha was from the Florida offices. Danny was pretty sure that Martin had never been a part of the Florida office, but that didn't mean that Martin and Samantha hadn't met before. It would certainly explain the animosity he felt radiating from both of them. He vowed to make it his mission to find out the whole story here.


	2. Come To Dinner With Us

**A/N: FYI, I will be continuing 'Love and Marriage'. So don't worry about that:)**

A Fool To Think

Chapter Two

Later that morning, Sam walked up to the sink in the restroom after exiting the stall. As she ran her hands underneath the facet, she took a deep breath. When she decided to transfer out of Florida she realized that she would be making certain sacrifices. For one, she would no longer be living in a temperate climate where it never snows. New York would be colder and she'd have to hang up her bikini in the wintertime.

She'd also be giving up the few friends that she had made in her office. She wasn't Miss Popular. That had never been her style, but she was well liked and respected by most people. Of course she would miss her old co-workers though. After all, she had been working with them for a few years now and had gotten to know them pretty well. They also knew her pretty well too, but she still kept herself guarded.

There was an invisible force field around her heart that no one had been able to penetrate and that's exactly how she wanted it to be. She'd had quite a few relationships since her break-up with Martin, but none seemed to last more than two months. After two months, the guy would always ask her why she never wanted to share anything with them and accuse her of not trusting them.

And they were always right. She didn't trust them. She didn't trust that they wouldn't crush her and disappoint her. But she'd tell them that they were wrong and that she really did trust them. Then they would always demand something from her that she just couldn't give. They'd want her heart and soul.

Those were just two things that she couldn't part with again. The last thing she needed was to let a man get into her soul like Martin had. It had hurt her too much when she realized that he wasn't worthy of her trust, her secrets, or her love.

So eventually she just quit dating altogether. It was better that way. It made everything less complicated, and while she did miss it, she wasn't ready to give anyone a chance to hurt her again.

She was reaching for some paper towel when she noticed Vivian entered the bathroom. "Hey." She gave the older woman a small smile.

"Hey Samantha." Vivian greeted back, returning the smile. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Sam nodded, throwing away the paper towel now that her hands were dry. "What you want to know?"

"This may be none of my business and you may want to tell me to stay out of it, but is something going on between you and Martin?" Vivian asked. She had noticed some tension between them and wondered about the origins of it. Had they met before?

Sam knew that there would be questions like this fielded her way ever since she saw Martin this morning. But she had no idea how to answer them without telling the whole, long, messy story. "Nothing's going on with Martin and me." That was partially true since there hadn't been anything going on between them for the past ten years. So she didn't feel too bad about lying to her new co-worker.

"Are you sure?" Vivian asked. "Because it seems like you two are avoiding each other and I can feel the tension surrounding you two. Given the fact that this is just your first day and there's already tension, I was just curious…"

"Everything's fine." Sam lied. She hadn't talked to Martin yet and truthfully didn't want to. That was one conversation that she would put off indefinitely if she could. If she could, she would ignore him and keep on trying to pretend that he was never born. But she couldn't do that anymore now that she was working with him. They would need to talk and try to form a semi-friendly working relationship.

"Ok." Vivian didn't believe her, but decided to let it go. "I was just curious and concerned."

"Well I appreciate it but it's not necessary. Everything's fine." Sam tried to assure her before walking out of the restroom.

* * *

Danny watched Vivian leave the bullpen. Knowing that Samantha had left for the restroom a few minutes ago, he took this opportunity to slide his chair over to Martin's desk and interrogate him. "So what's the deal with you and the new girl?" 

"What do you mean?" Martin asked, not glancing over at Danny. Instead, he kept his gaze focused on his computer screen. He was hoping that if he played it off like it was nothing, then Danny would leave him alone about it. Although he knew that the chances of that working were smaller than the chance that he was going to get struck by lightening five times in his lifetime, he still had to try.

"You are never that rude to anyone." Danny pointed out. "And you won't even look at her."

"I…" Martin was about to say that Danny was wrong, but Danny was right. He hadn't even looked at her. Just hearing her voice was enough to send him into a spiral. He was angry at her sudden appearance in his life, hurt because of the things in their past, and, worst of all, happy to see her.

He hated the fact that he was happy to see her. He should hate her. He should be angry and bitter. And while he was angry and bitter, he couldn't help but be happy to see her. Damn her! She always had this effect on him.

He hadn't seen her for ten years, and had found himself sneaking a few glances her way when she wasn't paying attention. She had been beautiful back in college, but now she was absolutely gorgeous.

There were so many things that he had never had a chance to say to her. He wanted to go up to her and just yell and scream at her about the way she treated him until his throat was sore. But there was another part of him that wanted to talk to her calmly and at least re-establish the friendship that they had once shared.

"Don't even think about denying it." Danny warned his friend. "I have this theory that you and Samantha know each other from somewhere outside of work. Am I right about that?"

"Perhaps." Martin replied.

"Wanna talk about it?" Danny offered.

"Not really." Martin shook his head, returning to his paperwork.

Danny knew that he wasn't going to get Martin to talk right now and decided to let it go. "Ok. But you know where I am if you change your mind."

"I won't, but thanks." Martin looked over at his friend and smiled.

"No problem." Danny slid back over to his desk. "That's what friends are for."

* * *

When the day was over and people started to head home, Sam hurried up in an attempt to leave before Martin so that she could avoid having to talk to him. Unfortunately that didn't look like it would happen because Danny kept talking to her and preventing her from leaving before Martin came back form talking to Jack in his office. 

"That's very interesting Danny." Sam smiled sweetly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to head home now."

"Oh, well do you have plans tonight?" Danny asked.

"Yes. I have a very hot date planned with some take-out Chinese and a bubble bath." Sam sighed. She could definitely use a bubble bath to relax after today. Starting this new job wasn't stressful. All in all, she enjoyed her new workplace, with only one exception. Martin Fitzgerald. "Why do you ask?"

"It's sort of a tradition for the team to take the newbie out to dinner on their first day here." Danny explained. "You know, so that we can bond and get to know each other better in a non-work setting."

"That's nice, but I really…" She didn't really want to go out to dinner with Martin. She wouldn't mind going with the rest of the team, but didn't want to spend any more time around Martin than what was necessary for their job.

"We don't take no for an answer." Vivian approached her.

"But…" Sam tried to object again.

"I wouldn't try arguing with her." Danny advised Samantha. "Many have tried and few have ever won."

"I'll take that under consideration." Sam sighed. It looked like she didn't have a choice in this and would just have to grin and bear it. "Ok. I'm in. Let's go to dinner."

"Great." Danny clapped his hands together enthusiastically. "So since you are the newbie, you get to pick where you want to go."

"I don't know much about the kinds of restaurants are around here. I just moved here a few days ago." Sam warned them.

"Well then just tell me what kind of food you want and I'll point you to the right place." Danny told her.

Sam shrugged, not really caring what she ate. She was just hungry. "Italian? Is that ok?"

"That's fine." Vivian nodded, turning to look at Danny. "How about Cavatore's? It's within walking distance and has great food."

"That's exactly what I was thinking Viv." Danny grinned.

"Ok. I'll go tell Martin and Jack." Vivian offered. "Why don't you two go ahead and get a table? We'll be right there."

"Ok." Danny nodded, motioning for Sam to come with him. "You'll love Cavatore's. They have the best penne pasta in New York City."

"Can't wait." Sam replied as they got into the elevator.

They continued to make idle conversation about work until they were about halfway to the restaurant. It was abnormally cool for a March evening, but it was still pleasant—at least to Danny. He looked over and saw that Samantha looked like she was cold. He attributed that to the fact that she was used to Florida's weather.

"So how well do you know Martin?" Danny had decided to skip the 'do you know Martin from outside of work' question because he already knew in his gut that Martin and Samantha knew each other. Instead, he focused on asking how well they knew each other. Maybe if he started with this question he could get a straight answer. He was already disappointed that he hadn't gotten anything out of Martin earlier.

"Excuse me?" Sam asked, surprised by his question. "What do you mean by that? I don't know Martin very well at all." That was actually true. While she had dated him for over a year and was even engaged to him, she felt like she didn't really know him.

"Somehow I don't believe that." Danny shook his head. "You and Martin have met before, haven't you?"

"What would make you think that?" Sam asked, trying to play innocent and keep her former connection to Martin a secret.

"Well it's just that Martin is usually so polite and mannerly. He's always been a perfect gentleman when meeting new people, especially women. But today, when he met you, he wasn't. He was rather cold towards you and that's not like him." Danny explained.

Martin being polite and mannerly? She couldn't help but laugh. "It's all an act. He's not nearly the saint you are painting him out to be. Trust me, he's more than capable of being a grade-A, class-less jerk. It's just a façade."

"Ah-ha!" Danny excited pointed his finger at her. "So you do know him from somewhere outside of work."

She immediately knew that she was busted and berated herself for her slip. "Why do you even care, anyway?"

"Martin's been my friend for two years and although I just met you, I'd like you to be my friend too. I look out for my friends."

She chuckled. "You mean, you want to butt into your friends' personal lives?"

He chuckled and ginned. "See? You know me already. I can tell that we're going to be good friends."

"Well look Danny, I don't want to discuss this." Sam told him honestly. "This is all I'm going to say about this and after I'm finished I would appreciate it if you could just let it drop. Ok?"

"Ok." He didn't want to let it drop, but at least he would be finding out some more detail about Martin and Samantha.

"I know Martin from college. We went to the same one and even dated for a while. But it ended really badly. I trusted him with everything I had and…well that was a mistake. I was a complete fool. I should've known better. I should've followed my original instincts and never opened up to him to begin with, but I didn't. I ended things with him and haven't seen him in almost ten years." Her mind drifted off to think about what had transpired between her and Martin but she quickly shook herself from the memories. "So there you go. That's all I'm going to say about it."

"Oh." Danny could see the sadness and hurt in her eyes and knew that talking about this must be hard for her. They continued walking two more blocks until they reached the restaurant. After being seating and placing their drink orders, Danny felt the need to apologize. "I'm sorry for pressing you about Martin. I didn't realize…"

"It's ok." Sam reassured him. "You didn't know."

"No, but still…I am sorry." He felt bad for making her reminisce about it since it was obvious to him that she was still affected by it. He couldn't help but wonder though what Martin had done to hurt her so badly. Had he cheated on her? Martin didn't seem like the type to cheat, but maybe there were things about his friend that he didn't know.

"I won't hold it against you." Sam assured him. She didn't want to think about Martin or their failed relationship anymore. It was bad enough that he was going to be joining them for dinner. She didn't want to spend the entire evening thinking about him. Opening her menu, she perused the list. She wasn't going to let Martin ruin her evening. "So you say the penne pasta is good?"


	3. Questions, Questions, Questions

A Fool To Think

Chapter Three

Martin reluctantly entered Cavatore's after Jack and Vivian. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was go out to dinner with Samantha. But he had no choice in the matter. If he refused to go, then everyone would be suspicious about why he had chosen to duck out of the tradition.

Danny would definitely see it as a sign that he knew Samantha from outside of work and then he would start asking a bunch of questions that Martin didn't want to answer. All he wanted was to sit on his couch, watch ESPN while eating pizza, and try to pretend that today never happened. But that wasn't an option.

When he got there, he noticed that they had chosen to get a booth. Vivian and Jack had slid into the booth on Danny's side, leaving him with no other choice but to sit next to Samantha. That was the only available spot. Taking a deep breath, he slipped out of his suit jacket and sat down as far away from her as he possibly could without falling out of the booth. Then he placed his jacket in between them, as if to signify an imaginary wall to divide them.

Samantha was less than thrilled when she realized that Martin was going to be sitting next to her and tried to scoot closer to Danny. Danny saw what she was doing and flashed her a smile of support. She gave him a small smile back and realized that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to let Danny know some of what was going on between her and Martin. At least now she seemed to have an ally.

She could tell that Martin wasn't happy about having to sit next to her either, and understood why. This was an extremely awkward situation and she saw no way out. She decided to pretend that he wasn't even there.

"So Samantha, what do you think about New York so far?" Jack asked, trying to get the conversation going.

"It's cold, compared to Florida." She made a funny face. "I hate cold weather. That's why I was in Florida."

"So if you don't like the cold, why did you transfer up here?" Vivian asked out of curiosity.

"I needed a change." Sam explained. Her life in Florida was fine. But she needed a change. So she decided to try and change her life by asking for a transfer.

She had thought that if she started over in a new city she could find happiness. Little did she know that she would find Martin again. That was unexpected.

Martin had tuned out of the conversation as soon as he heard her tell the group that she hated cold weather. His thoughts immediately wandered and he found himself recalling a specific Saturday night in January that he spent with Samantha in her apartment.

"_Why isn't anyone showing the scores of the Knicks game?" Martin released a frustrated sigh as he continued flipping through the channels of Sam's television. They were sitting together on her couch, cuddled up together with a blanket on top of them since her heater wasn't working again. "You have cable. So why is this taking so long to find out one simple score?"  
_

"_I don't know." She shook her head and snuggled up closer to him, partially because she wanted to be close to him and also partially for body heat. _

_He sighed again before turning off the television. "I guess I'll just wait until the paper comes tomorrow and find out the old-fashioned way." He smiled at her and placed a kiss on her lips. "What do you want to do tonight?" _

"_I dunno." She shrugged. _

"_Want to go out? We could go do something fun since this is our last weekend of freedom before classes start Monday." He suggested. The month off from classes for Christmas break they had was almost over and the time seemed to fly by in a hurry. "We could go out ice skating or we could go see a movie." _

"_Why don't we just stay in tonight?" She suggested. _

"_But it's cold in here." Martin pointed out. _

"_Yes, but it's colder out there." She pointed out the window. "You know I hate cold weather."_

"_Then why did you choose to go to school in Chicago?" He teased. "Why not Arizona or Florida?"_

"_Because this was the only good school that offered me a complete scholarship package. Not all of us can come from rich parents." She pointed out. _

"_No, I guess not." He kissed the top of her head. _

"_Besides, if I had gone to Arizona or Florida, I never would've met you."_

"_And that would have been tragic." He joked sarcastically._

"_Yes it would have!" She exclaimed, reaching up to give him a passionate kiss._

"_Ok. Maybe you're right. It would have been devastating." He joked, but knew that she was aware he was just joking around. Finding her was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he was really glad that he had decided against going to school back East. _

_He could see that there was no way to convince her to go outside right now but that still left him with the question of what they were going to do for the rest of the night since it was still early. "So if we stay in, what do you suggest we do to pass the time? We need to do something that will pass the time and keep us warm."_

_She grinned. "I have a few ideas about how we can do that." _

"_Oh really?" He pretended to be innocent and not know what she was talking about. "How do you propose we do that?"_

_She leaned in and placed a few quick kisses on his lips before abruptly getting up from the couch. "If you want to follow me into the bedroom I would be more than happy to give you a demonstration. But you have to catch me first." She started running around the apartment. _

_It didn't take him long to run after her since it was a small apartment, and cornered her in the kitchen. He trapped her against the wall and his mouth hungrily attacked hers. His hands roamed freely around her body, moving around her back and then over to her stomach. _

_"As much fun as keeping warm in the kitchen would be, I think we should move to the bedroom in case my roommate comes home from work early." Sam told him in between kisses._

_"You don't want to give her a free show?" He whispered into her ear. _

"_Not really." She whispered back into his ear. _

"_Let's go to the bedroom then." In one sweeping movement he picked her up into his arms and carried her out of the kitchen. _

"Martin? Martin?" Vivian called his name again, trying for the fifteenth time to get his attention.

"What?" He was finally aware of Vivian calling his name and shook himself out of the memory that he was reliving.

"You've been out of it for a few minutes now." Vivian pointed out, gesturing to the waiter. "Ready to order?"

He looked over at the waiter and gave an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I'll just have the chicken alfredo."

"Ok." The waiter scribbled it down on his notepad before walking away from the table.

"You were deep in thought about something." Vivian noted. "Care to tell us what it was?"

"Um…" He didn't want to tell them what he was thinking about earlier and stalled to have enough time to make up a lie. "It was nothing important."

Vivian didn't believe him, but decided to let it go for now. "Well we were just getting ready get to know Samantha better. We're going to go around the table, taking turns at asking her something. Then she can ask us something."

"It will be sort of a fun way to get to know each other." Danny stated. "Since none of us know Samantha that well."

Inwardly Martin laughed because Danny was right. None of them knew Samantha very well. Even he didn't know her, and he was engaged to her for a while!

"Who wants to go first?" Vivian asked.

"I'll go first." Danny volunteered. "What's your favorite color?"

"That's the question?" Sam laughed. She was expecting some in-depth, deeply personal and probing question from Danny. But maybe he still felt bad about pushing her into telling him about Martin. "Well my favorite color is black because it goes with everything and it's classy."

"Good answer." Danny nodded. He had given her an easy question since he had already asked her about Martin earlier. "Now it's your turn."

"Do I have to ask the same question you asked me or not?" She wasn't completely clear on what the rules of this little exercise were.

"You can ask me the same question, or you could ask me something completely different." Danny responded.

"Ok." She thought about it for a moment. "What's your favorite thing to do outside of work?"

"Date, date, and then date some more." Danny immediately replied.

The whole table laughed at his answer and at the speed of his response. Vivian then decided to go next. "Samantha, where are you from?"

"Kenosha, Wisconsin." Sam replied as the smile left her face. She hated talking about her childhood or even mentioning anything connected with her hometown or her family. It was a sore subject for her.

Martin looked over at Samantha, wondering if she was hurting because of her childhood and past conflicts with her parents. When they were together, she always hated talking about her childhood or her family. She always told him that talking about it only made her more sad and angry. So they rarely ever spoke about it, but the few times they did, he managed to get her to spill some of her secrets.

Vaguely aware that he was actually starting to feel bad for her again, he built up a protective wall and tried to retain the anger and hurt he felt towards her. He shouldn't care if she was still having trouble dealing with her past.

"Vivian, I know you have a son. What's he like?" She had seen the pictures proudly displayed on Vivian's desk and couldn't help but be curious about him. She didn't really want children because of her own messed up childhood, but still loved being around other peoples' children.

"Reggie? Oh he's great. He's 15 and in high school. He's approaching that age where he's starting to discover girls, so that's definitely something that I'm not looking forward to dealing with. But he's a good boy with a good head on his shoulders." Vivian's face beamed when she spoke about her son. The pride she had showed through her face.

"Well since I guess we're just going around the table in order," Jack glanced at Danny and Vivian, "then it's my turn. I'm not creative so I'm stealing your earlier question for Danny. What's your favorite thing to do outside of work?"

"I guess that would be running." Sam answered after giving it a few moments of thought. "I love to go jogging." Unlike Danny, she didn't enjoy dating very much.

"So Jack," she thought about her question for a moment before grinning. She decided to have a little fun with her boss and watch him squirm a little. "Who is your favorite team member? Which one of them?" She gestured to Danny, Vivian and Martin.

"I um…" Jack wasn't sure how to answer this question.

"Now this is a question that I'm interested in hearing him answer." Danny grinned, high-fiving Samantha for her choice of questions.

"How come I get the hard question?" Jack complained with a grin. "Why couldn't you ask me what my favorite food was or something?"

"What would be the fun of that?" Samantha smiled and chuckled. "The way I see it, an opportunity to freely ask your superior any question rarely comes around. Might as well make the most of this opportunity. I'm very interested in knowing who your favorite is."

"No, you're very interested in making me squirm." Jack corrected her with a chuckle. "But I'll answer the question anyway. I don't have a favorite team member. I like all of my agents the same. Each of them has qualities that I like more than others, but overall, I like them all the same."

"Good answer." Sam commented as their food arrived.


	4. Scum

A Fool To Think

Chapter Four

Their food had come before Martin had to ask Samantha her question and he hoped that everyone would forget that he hadn't asked a question because he really didn't want to talk to her. He also had no idea what kind of question he would ask her. All of the questions he wanted to ask her weren't the kind of questions that should be asked in front of their co-workers.

Unfortunately, Vivian was a very observant person and noticed that Martin hadn't participated in their little activity to get to know Samantha. Not only did she notice, but she pointed it out too.

"Martin, don't forget that it's your turn to ask Samantha something." Vivian told him as she spun some strands of spaghetti around her spoon.

Danny watched as Martin cringed a little and wondered if he should intervene to save both Martin and Sam from having to ask questions.

"Who could forget?" Martin mumbled. This was the last thing that he wanted to do, but decided to get it over with. He didn't look at her while he asked his question. Instead he simply tapped his fingers on his glass to keep himself occupied. "I'll ask you an easy question. What's your favorite food?"

She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard his question. He really could have opened up a huge can of worms by asking something more personal, but instead he stuck to a generic question that no one really cared about. She was grateful for that. "Chinese." She replied, thinking of what she could ask him.

He was slightly amused to find out that her favorite food hadn't changed in the past ten years. She still loved Chinese food. When they were going out, she seemed to always have a full box of Chinese food handcuffed to her hand.

She'd eat it while she was studying, claiming that it helped her get good grades. But she didn't need the Chinese food. She didn't even really need to study. She was smart enough that she never had to study. But she always did anyway. He guessed that was because of the need she felt to prove to her family that she was smart and could actually do something positive with her life. He had always admired that about her.

"I can't think of anything to ask you right now." Sam told him and the rest of the table, staring at her plate. "So I guess I'll just go ahead and ask you the same question you asked me. What's your favorite food?"

"Pepperoni pizza." Martin replied before returning his attention to his food.

She also returned her attention to her food and thought back to his answer. She couldn't help but be amused that his favorite food hadn't changed over the past decade. When they were going out, his room at the fraternity house was always cluttered with old pizza boxes. He ate pizza all the time and vividly remembered one week where he ate pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner for seven days straight.

Vivian looked over at Danny, silently asking about what was going on between Martin and Samantha. There was obviously something that didn't add up with them. But Danny just shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to repeat anything that Samantha had told him.

Jack was completely oblivious to the tension between two of his subordinates and started a brand new conversation.

* * *

"That was very good. It was fun." Samantha commented once they were done. They had all walked back to the office so that they could get to their cars. Vivian was already heading over to her car. 

"Goodnight everyone." Vivian waved.

"Goodnight!" The rest of them called out.

"So Jack, when am I going to be getting a bureau car?" Sam asked. As of right now, she was without a car and would have to take a cab home tonight.

"You should be getting issued one tomorrow. I've sent the paperwork in and just have to wait for it to be processed." Jack informed her. "Do you have a ride home tonight?"

"No." She shook her head. "But I was just going to get a cab."

"Nonsense." Jack shook his head. "There are three of us here with cars. Where do you live?"

"Uptown, on the west side." Sam replied, nervously hoping that she wouldn't get stuck with Martin. She could deal with getting a ride home from Danny or even Jack. But she wasn't sure she was ready to be alone in a car with Martin.

"I live on the eastside." Jack replied, looking over at Danny. "Don't you live downtown?"

"Yeah." Danny nodded.

Jack then turned to Martin. "You live on the westside though, right?"

"Uh yeah, but…" He didn't really want to be the one to take Samantha home but didn't know how to say no without arousing suspicion.

"That's ok." Sam intervened. She didn't want to ride with Martin any more than he wanted to give her a ride. "I'll just take a cab."

"Why should you have to spend that kind of money when Martin is already heading that way anyway?" Jack reasoned, not seeing why Martin couldn't just give Samantha a ride home.

Martin sighed, knowing that there was no way out of this. For some reason, the universe wanted him to be around Samantha right now. Who was he to argue with the universe? "Ok. C'mon. I'll drive you home."

"Thanks." She hesitantly replied. "Goodnight guys." She gave a small wave before hurrying to catch up with Martin, who was already halfway to his car. When she got into his car, she immediately put on her seat belt and prepared for a bumpy ride. Then she gave him directions to her new apartment.

Martin heard the familiar click of his seatbelt as he strapped himself in and turned the key in the ignition to start the car. Driving Samantha around New York City wasn't on his list of favorite things to do and definitely wasn't something he thought he would be doing when he woke up this morning.

She stole a quick glance at him while he was driving. He seemed to be content not speaking to her and wasn't sure whether she should be happy about that or disappointed. They were going to have to talk at some point. Maybe now wasn't the best time though. She turned her head again and stared out of her window, absentmindedly looking at the passing scenery.

He stopped at a red stoplight and took the opportunity to look at Samantha. She was staring out the window. Apparently she didn't want to take this opportunity to talk to him. Maybe that was a good thing. Of course, he realized that they would have to talk eventually. Maybe now would be a good time. When the stoplight turned green again and the car started moving again, he decided to go for it. "I never thought I'd see you again Sam."

"It's Samantha to you." She told him quietly.

So he was back to having to call her Samantha? Of course he was. Only her closest friends could ever call her Sam. He wasn't one of her closest friends anymore. "Ok, Samantha." He emphasized the use of her full name.

Her gaze involuntarily flew over to him as she studied his face. "I never thought I'd see you again either Martin. So I guess we're even."

"Yeah, I guess so." He stated keeping his eyes glued to the road. He wanted to ask her so many things and finally get some answers to the questions that had been burning his mind ever since she left him. But at the same time, he didn't really want to fight with her and he knew that his questions would start a fight.

She took a deep breath before being honest with him. "Look, you're not my favorite person in the world and I know you're probably not the president of my personal fan club. But can we at least try to maintain a professional working relationship? This tension that's between us right now is not going to be a good thing once we start working on cases. Vivian and Danny are already suspicious about what's going on with us. If we're partnered together for a case we need to be able to work together."

"You're damn right I'm not the president of your fan club!" He exclaimed, getting angry and frustrated with her. "But don't you dare come into my team and start telling me how to behave! I don't need you telling me what I should or shouldn't do while working a case."

"I'm not trying to tell you how to behave!" She yelled back. "I'm simply trying to express a desire to be able to work well together without any arguing or tension!"

"If you didn't want tension between us, maybe you shouldn't have left me at the alter!" Martin yelled back at her.

"So that's what this screaming match is really about. You're still mad about that." She sighed. She had wondered how long it would take him to bring that up and throw it in her face. He had actually waited longer than she thought he would. She had felt bad about leaving him like that on their wedding day and leaving him to deal with the guests and everything, but not bad enough to stick around and deal with it together.

"Damn right I'm mad about that!" Martin yelled, keeping his eyes on the road. He was afraid that if he looked over at her right now his anger would subside. That's the way it had worked in the past. If he got angry with her, his anger always subsided if he looked into those soulful eyes of hers. And he didn't want that to happen tonight.

"Maybe you shouldn't have left me with just a poorly scribbled note and one hundred and fifty wedding guests that kept wondering what was so horrible about me that you couldn't bring yourself to show up for your own wedding! If you didn't want there to be tension between us, maybe you should have thought about that before you started this whole thing. You set it into motion so you deal with it!"

She admitted that maybe leaving him at the alter on their wedding day with just a note wasn't the nicest thing to do. But he deserved it. He had hurt her worse than she had ever been hurt before in her entire life. Not even her parents or step-father hurt her as badly as he did and the fact that he was pretending to hold no fault or blame in this was appalling to her. He knew what he had done yet he was pretending to be blameless.

"You really hurt me when you didn't show up." He quietly admitted.

"I hurt you? What about how you hurt me?" She exclaimed angrily.

"How? How did I hurt you?" Martin asked. "Tell me. Please. What did I do to you that was so bad?"

"Don't pretend that you don't know what you did. I may have been naïve and gullible enough to buy into you before but I'm not that way anymore. I see right through you." She told him. She could feel herself start to lose control and knew that the tears would stat flowing soon. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of him so she knew she had to get out of the car.

A few seconds later, they were stuck at another red light. She unfastened her seat belt and grabbed her purse. "We'll tell the Jack and the rest of the team that you drove me all the way home. But I'm getting out of here and the rest of the way. It's not that far anyway. But I don't want to be around you right now."

"That's fine with me." He told her angrily. "I don't want to be around you right now either."

"Great." She opened up the door and stepped out. But before she closed the door, she said one last thing. "You know, Martin, I'm not sure how you have everyone on the team convinced that you're such a good guy. They practically have your application for sainthood typed up. But I know the truth. I know the real Martin Fitzgerald, and he's nothing but scum." She slammed the door shut and started walking away towards her apartment building.

The light turned green and Martin stepped on the gas pedal, eager to get away from Samantha. How dare she tell him that he was scum! He wasn't scum! He was the victim in all of this. He was the one who got dumped on his wedding day for no apparent reason other than the fact that his fiancée was a completely heartless bitch.

She had no right to be this mad at him. He was the one that had the right to be mad. He had earned that right and he was going to exercise that right. But when he started thinking about it and calmed down a bit, the anger subsided. All that was left were his hurt feelings and a deep hole in his heart.


	5. Casablanca

A Fool To Think

Chapter Five

Later that night Sam tossed and turned in her bed, unable to find the sleep that eluded her. The only thing that she could think about was Martin. Calling him scum was probably harsh, but after what he did to her, she couldn't help being angry.

Flinging back the covers, she got out of bed and made her way into the living room of her new apartment to find something. There were still boxes that she hadn't gotten a chance to unpack littering the empty spaces of the apartment. Luckily she knew which box she had packed it in.

She took the pair of scissors lying on the coffee table and cut through the packing tape to open the box. Then she reached inside and grabbed two items. One was a large shoebox and the other was a stuffed teddy bear. She picked up the items, moving to sit on the floor and lean up against the couch.

Her fingers lightly traced the facial features of the stuffed animal, remembering the night that Martin won it for her. It was during their senior year of college. They had been dating for about three months and went to the annual carnival that his fraternity sponsored.

"_So do you want to ride the ferris wheel or do bumper cars next?" Sam asked as she linked arms with Martin. It was early September in Chicago and surprisingly it was still moderately warm._

"_Doesn't matter to me." He told her as a grin appeared on his face. "Although the thought of getting to be alone with you in a ferris wheel car does sound appealing." _

_She grinned back, placing a light kiss on his cheek. "Ferris wheel it is then." _

_They made their way over to the ferris wheel, and saw that there was a long line of people waiting for their turn. Martin turned to her. "I'll be right back. Stay here in line, ok?" _

"_Um, ok." She wondered where he was going and why he was leaving her to stand in line alone, but didn't want to fight with him about it. She just hoped he would be back before it was their turn to ride the ferris wheel. _

_A few minutes later, Martin returned. He was just in time too because it was now their turn to get on the ferris wheel. He let Sam get in the car first and then sat next to her. "Here you go. I got this for you." He handed the object in his hand to her as the ride started to move. _

_She took the stuffed animal from him and smiled. "You got me a teddy bear?" _

"_Yeah." Martin nodded. _

"_Is that where you went just now?" She questioned._

"_Yeah. I wanted to get something for you and there was a game that we passed on the way over here that I knew I could win." _

"_I can't believe that you went and won this for me." Sam marveled, staring at the teddy bear. "No one had ever done something like this for me. It's so sweet of you." _

"_I thought that it would be a great reminder of tonight, assuming that you want to remember tonight." Martin brushed a piece of her hair back behind her ear. _

"_Oh I never want to forget tonight." She assured him, leaning in and kissing him passionately. _

"_I have to admit that the game I won wasn't too difficult. It was just the ring toss game."_

_She smiled. "It doesn't matter to me what game you won. The fact that you would make such an effort to be nice to me is enough." _

"_Why wouldn't I make an effort to be nice to you though?" Martin questioned. "You're amazing Sam."  
_

_She shook her head. "I wouldn't go that far." She didn't feel amazing. Half the time she didn't even feel special. But the more time she spent with Martin, the more she was starting to feel better about herself. _

_He had a way of making her forget everything that had happened in the past and he made her feel wanted. Not just in a sexual way either, but completely wanted. He listened to her when she talked, he asked her opinions about various things, and did nice things for her like getting her this teddy bear. He was the exact opposite of all the other guys she'd ever known. Up until now she wasn't sure that guys could even be interested in more than sex, but he was proving her assumptions to be wrong._

"_I would." Martin objected. "You are amazing Sam. I don't know how you managed not to have much self-esteem or who pushed you down to the point where you don't think you're worthy, but it's not true. And I'm going to keep telling you that until you finally believe me." _

"_You're the one who's amazing." She reached over and kissed him, loving it when she felt his arm wrap around her shoulder and pull her closer. "Thanks, and not just for teddy bear, but for everything." _

"_Anytime." He kissed the top of her head. "Anytime."_

She shook herself out of that memory, not surprised to find that tears were streaming down her face. She couldn't believe that she was so stupid to think that he was actually being sincere. She should have seen through the act and realized that it was all just a part of his sick little plan. Angrily, she threw the teddy bear across the room.

She had to wonder though if it was all an act. Did he actually love her or was she just a means to an end? She didn't want to think that all of the good times they had were faked, all plotted by a master manipulator in order to gain her trust so that he could exploit her. But what else was she supposed to believe? She saw the proof with her own eyes.

Realizing that she wasn't going to get to sleep tonight, she climbed onto her couch and turned on the television. After flipping through a dozen channels, she found a movie channel that was playing the beginning of Casablanca.

This was one of her favorite movies. She always forced Martin to watch it with her and he'd always claim that he was just watching it because she wanted to see it. Still, she had a hunch that he really did like the movie and was just afraid to say it out-loud. Sighing, she put down the remote and settled in to watch it.

* * *

Meanwhile, in his own apartment, Martin was also having trouble sleeping. After checking the clock and seeing that he had been trying unsuccessfully to get to sleep for almost two and a half hours, he decided to get up. If he wasn't going to be able to sleep, then he might as well do something else. 

He thought about taking a late-night run to clear his head, but decided that he didn't have the energy to do that. Seeing Samantha again had zapped all the energy from him.

She had called him scum, and that hurt more than he would ever admit. What did he do to her that was so bad? He never cheated on her and never did anything to intentionally hurt her. He was always supportive and kind. Yeah they fought sometimes, but it was never about anything that would justify breaking up. So why did she leave him?

He walked over to his desk and dug around in the bottom drawer until he found what he was looking for. A plain white envelope with his name scribbled on the front. It was a ten-year old letter. The ink was fading slightly and paper was turning colors, but he could still read it. Of course being able to read it wasn't necessary. He had it memorized. His mind flashed back to the first time he read it.

"_This came for you." Steve, Martin's best man and fraternity brother, told him as he handed over an envelope. _

"_Who's it from?" Martin asked, inspecting the envelope. Who would send him something right now? He was in a church getting ready to marry the woman of his dreams. _

_"I don't know." Steve shrugged. "All I know is that someone dropped it off with the priest and he told me to give it to you because it has your name on it."_

_"Ok." He noticed that the handwriting looked similar to Sam's and smiled. Maybe it was some kind of last minute love letter or something. Taking the letter from the envelope, he started to read._

_Martin,_

_I can't marry you today, or any other day for that matter. I'm leaving town. By the time you get this note I'll already be gone. Don't try to look for me and don't try to contact me because I don't want to talk to you. I don't have anything else left to say to you. _

_After finding out what you've done, I don't love you anymore. I don't even like you much right now. I can't believe you'd do something like this to me after I trusted you with my heart._

_Samantha_

_The smile that had been on his face immediately turned into a look of confusion and hurt. She wasn't coming? She was leaving town? She didn't love him anymore? Since when? What had he done? What was happening here? When he spoke to her last night everything was fine. They hadn't fought and he thought she was looking forward to getting married. _

_At first he thought that this was just a prank that one of his fraternity brothers were pulling on him. They were always pulling pranks and practical jokes. He assumed that this was just one of those things. He thought that they were joking around with him and trying to get him to freak out on his wedding day. _

"_Is this some kind of joke?" Martin asked Steve. _

"_What do you mean?" Steve asked, looking at his friend for some kind of explanation. "Is what some kind of a joke?" _

"_This." Martin answered, waving the note in front of his friend. "Did you or some of the other fraternity brothers write this?" _

"_No." Steve replied. "Why? What does it say?" _

"_It says that Sam's not coming." Martin explained. _

"_Not coming?" Steve repeated. "What does that mean? She can't just be a no-show for her own wedding."_

"_She can if she doesn't want to get married." Martin whispered, taking a closer look at the note and envelope._

_The handwriting looked like Sam's, but her handwriting didn't look like it would be too difficult to forge. It wasn't until he found the engagement ring that he had given to her in the bottom of the envelope that he realized it was real. It was really happening. Sam had left him._

He was left with the daunting task of trying to explain to their guests and his family why Sam had decided not to show up. But that was hard because he wasn't even sure why she was a no-show. He had no clue why she decided to dump him so unceremoniously and in such a cruel way.

If she didn't want to get married then why plan the ceremony? Why wait until the very last moment to back out? He didn't understand then and he still didn't understand now.

He folded the letter back into the envelope and placed it back in its' place, buried deep in the desk drawer. He knew that there was no way he was getting any sleep tonight so he sat on the couch and turned on his television. First he checked ESPN and caught up on all the sports news he had missed during the day, then he started flipping through in search of a movie to watch.

He groaned when he saw that Casablanca was on. Sam had forced him to watch it with her many times. They would lie on the couch, tangled up in each other and eating popcorn. Those were some good times. He liked that movie a lot and he never told her that, but always had a sneaking suspicion that she knew it anyway.

He was tempted to pass this movie and check for anything else to watch, but the lure of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman compelled him to continue. So he put down the remote and settled in on the couch to watch the rest of the movie.


	6. What If?

A Fool To Think

Chapter Six

The next week and a half went by fairly smoothly for Martin and Samantha. Luckily for them, Jack seemed content to always partner Samantha with Danny and Martin with Vivian. So there was very little interaction between Martin and Samantha, and the little interaction that did occur was always professional.

But just because they weren't arguing it didn't mean that they weren't emotionally drained after work. For Sam, she found that being around Martin was proving more difficult than she initially thought it would be. She knew that it would be hard to see him everyday, but she wasn't prepared for the constant barrage of memories that flooded her consciousness whenever they were in a room together.

She'd see him across the bullpen eating a sandwich and remember lunches that they had together in the past. She'd see him laugh or smile at something Danny said and she'd get a glimpse of his dimples. The same dimples that she loved. There was a time when she'd do anything, no matter how silly, just to get him to smile so that she could see them again. But those days were gone.

She hated him, or at least she wanted to. She really wanted to and tried hard to achieve her goal. After everything that he put her through she wished she could hate him. But the truth remained that she didn't hate him. She hated his actions and hated the fact that he hurt her, but found it hard to hate him—especially now that she had to work with him and see him so much.

It was easier to put him out of her mind when she was in Florida. Sure she remembered him. He never fully left her mind the memories they created were still fresh in her mind. But she could separate the memories from her daily life and set aside a special time to indulge herself in happier times.

Now though, seeing him so much was taking a toll on her. She hated feeling like this. She hated the fact that she missed him and she hated the fact that she still loved him. It wasn't fair.

If she had never found out, would she have been happier? It was a question that she had asked herself millions of times, and usually the answer was yes. If she had never found out about his exploitation of her, she could have lived a happier life. They say that ignorance is bliss, and in this case they would have been right.

Sometimes she dreamed about what their life would be like right now if they had gotten married that day. She always envisioned having two children, a boy and a girl. The boy would look like a miniature version of his father while the girl would look just like Samantha, except the girl would have the same piercing blue eyes as her father.

She'd dream that they were together, watching their children play in the backyard of their house and enjoying the fact that they were a family. It was a good dream. Too bad it couldn't have worked that way.

* * *

Martin glanced up from his computer, taking a moment to look at Sam. She wasn't paying attention to him so he felt safe looking at her. If she saw him looking at her she would probably start yelling at him and he didn't want that. 

He felt like he was on an emotional rollar coaster that never ended and never took a break. One minute he would want to try and to work things out with Sam, to at least try and repair the friendship that they once had. But then he'd remember how much she hurt him by leaving him at the alter and how angry he was with her for leaving him without so much as an explanation. It was in those moments that he wanted to hurt her as badly as she hurt him.

He didn't want to fight with her but knew that if they talked about anything other than work-related items, they would fight. So he found it best that he didn't talk to her at all. But he wanted to.

Ever since their argument that first night in the car he wanted to talk to her again. Obviously she was still mad about something he had done. But what? What did he do to her that was so bad that she would hate him like this? He's been wracking his brain about that for nearly ten years now and still didn't have an answer. Would he ever know the answer or would it be one of life's great mysteries?

Jack was thankfully still oblivious to the tension between him and Sam. Unfortunately, Vivian and Danny weren't and although he could see the questioning looks they passed his way he did nothing to fill them in on his past with Sam.

What would he tell them anyway? He couldn't tell them the whole story because he didn't even have the whole story himself. All he knew what that one minute he was getting ready to marry his best friend and then the next he was trying to pick up his shattered heart from the gutter that she drop-kicked it into.

Jack came out of his office with Danny trailing behind him. "Ok guys. Looks like Danny may have found a lead on our missing person. Judging from the phone records and credit card statements, it looks like Josie might have been having an affair with her husband's boss."

He handed the address to Martin. "Martin, Samantha, I want you two to go interview the boss. Try to see what you can find out from him."

Danny knew that Martin and Sam didn't want to be partnered with each other and decided to step in and help. "Uh Jack, why don't I go with Sam to interview the boss?"

"Because I need you to go back over the rest of those credit card statements." Jack replied, turning around and heading back to his office.

Danny gave an apologetic smile to both Sam and Martin before heading back to his desk. He tried, but it was no use. It looked like Sam and Martin were going to be stuck with each other for a while.

"I'll meet you at the elevator." Martin told her. "Don't take too long."

Sam sighed as she picked up her jacket from the back of her chair. On her way to the elevator, she stopped by Danny's desk. "Thanks for trying." She quietly told him.

"No problem." He smiled. "Too bad it didn't help."

Sam chuckled. "Well what doesn't kill me will only make me stronger."

"That's supposed to be the way it goes." Danny chuckled.

"I better get going before Martin leaves without me, and I wouldn't put it past him." Sam commented.

"Good luck." Danny told her. This would be the first time that Martin and Sam had to be alone since the night Martin took her home. She had told him some of the general details about that conversation and he understood that it got ugly. He hoped that this car ride would be better than that one.

* * *

As soon as Martin got into the car and turned it on, he started playing with the radio. He thought that if they had music playing, then they wouldn't need to talk. And if they didn't talk, they wouldn't argue. It was a good plan until Sam abruptly turned off the radio. 

"Hey!" He objected. "What did you do that for?"

"I don't want to listen to the radio." She told him matter-of-factly.

"Well I do." He told her, turning it back on.

"Too bad. Your choice in music is terrible." Sam reached over and turned it back off.

"There was a time when you loved my choice of music." He pointed out.

"That was a long time ago, and your taste in music has only gotten worse since then." She told him.

"Well I don't care if you don't like it. I'm the one who's driving so that means I'm in control of the radio." Martin explained, flipping it back on. "And I want it on."

"Fine." She didn't want to fight about something so trivial as the radio. "You win this time." She sighed and turned her head to stare out the window.

He sighed and turned off the radio. Arguing about something as trivial as the radio wasn't worth it for him. "Look, can we talk for a moment?"

"About what?" She asked, not taking her eyes off of the sidewalks as they drove by.

"I think you know what we need to talk about." He told her.

"We don't need to talk about that." She told him, finally looking over to him. "What's left to say?"

"A lot." He informed her. "Starting with why you're so mad at me. What did I do Samantha? What did I do to you that was so bad that you didn't think you could come to me and we could work it out?"

She stared at him in disbelief. "You're still playing the innocent, 'I don't know what's going on' card? You know what you did."

"It's not an act." He insisted. "I honestly don't know what I've done. Please tell me."

"I don't appreciate the fact that you keep wanting me to say it out-loud. Would it give you some kind of sick pleasure to hear me talk about it?"

"No." He sighed. "I…I just don't know how I can apologize for hurting you if I don't know what I did."

"You'd apologize?" She was caught off guard by that statement and was becoming more and more confused. He kept insisting that he didn't know what he did to her. Was it a ploy to avoid blame or was it possible that he wasn't the mastermind behind it?

"Of course I'd apologize." He kept his eyes glued to the road. "Contrary to your current beliefs about me, I'm not a horrible guy. I really cared about you. You keep saying that I hurt you but you hurt me too. You left me on our wedding day. How do you think that made me feel?"

"Martin…" She let his name linger out there, unsure of what else to say. She knew that it must have been hard to get dumped on your wedding day, but what else was she supposed to do? She found out about it the night before the wedding and she couldn't have gone through with the wedding and then broke up with him.

"Look, now probably isn't the right time for this because we're here." While they had been talking, they had arrived at the office building where Josie's possible lover worked.

Sam got out of the car and took a deep breath. She wasn't sure what to think anymore. Everything was a mess. She saw the concrete proof with her own eyes. She saw that Martin was the one responsible. So why was she starting to question Martin's guilt in this?


	7. Frat Party

A Fool To Think

Chapter Seven

Almost Twelve Years Ago…

_"Oh c'mon Sam!" Kelly, her roommate exclaimed. "We've been roommates ever since freshman year and in that entire two and half year period I have never seen you do anything fun! You don't party, you don't date and you don't go out and you don't go hang out with your friends. All you ever do is stay inside the apartment and study."_

"_Because I want to get good grades." Sam reminded Kelly. It was important to her that she get straight A's. _

"_But you are getting straight A's and you're smart enough that you don't need to study this much. You could get an A in a class just by showing up and paying attention to the lectures." Kelly picked up the book Sam was reading and threw it in the trashcan. "You don't need to devote your whole life to school."_

"_Please don't throw my books away." Sam calmly but forcefully commanded. _

"_College isn't just about studying. It's also about making friends and having some fun." _

"_I have friends and I have fun." Sam objected. _

"_No you don't. Now get dressed and let's go. Phi Delta Theta is having a big party tonight and you're coming with me whether you want to or not."_

"_I'm not going with you." Sam told her. _

"_Yes you are. You are coming with me even I have to call Bruce and get him to carry you there. I'll do it if I have to."_

_Bruce was Kelly's cousin. He played football for the college and was definitely strong enough to carry her to the party. "Why are you so insistent that I go with you?" _

"_Because I think you need to have some fun in your life." Kelly replied. "I'm worried about you. All you ever do is study and that's not healthy. Please just come with me this one time?" _

"_I don't have anything to wear." Sam told her, thinking that would be a good excuse. _

"_No problem. You can borrow something from my closet." Kelly smiled. She took Sam's hand and led her friend into her closet. "I know exactly what you should wear!"_

"_I'm going to regret this. I can feel it already." Sam mumbled as she took a look at what Kelly wanted her to wear. _

* * *

_"I feel really uncomfortable in this." Sam whispered to Kelly as they entered the door of the fraternity house. She was dressed in a red halter top and a black skirt that was too short for her liking._

"_But you look amazing." Kelly complimented. "You have a really nice figure that most girls would die for. I still don't understand why you hide it in baggy clothes. You dress like one of those old-fashioned librarians, with your conservative attire and hair in a bun."_

"_I don't dress like a librarian." Sam objected, even though she knew there was some truth to that statement. _

"_Whatever. The point is I want you to have some fun. Ok?" Kelly smiled. _

"_I'll try." Sam promised. _

"_Let's just start with some punch." Kelly filled up two cups with punch and handed one to Sam. "This should help you relax a little bit. Knowing these guys, there's probably some alcohol mixed in with the punch. It's their way of not opening endorsing alcohol at their parties." _

_Sam slowly sipped her drink, watching the people around her. The house looked huge, but at the moment, there was barely enough room for everyone. There were people dancing to the loud music and then there were also a lot of people standing around talking to each other. She didn't know any of these people though, so she just stood there observing everything. _

"_I'm going to go dance." Kelly told her, pointing to the guy who had just walked over. "You ok alone for a little bit?" _

"_Yes." Sam assured her friend. "Go." But as she watched Kelly start dancing, she realized that she wasn't ok being alone. So she just stayed close to the punch bowl, drinking cup after cup of punch until she wasn't sure how many she had drank. _

_Kelly was right. They must have put alcohol in the punch because Sam soon became slightly tipsy. But at least she finally felt relaxed. That's why she said yes when a strange guy came up to her and asked her to dance._

"_My name's Alex." The guy told her as they started to dance. "Do you have a name?" _

"_Of course. Everyone has a name." She giggled. _

_He smiled. This girl was plastered. He had picked well tonight. "So what's yours?" _

"_Samantha." She smiled. _

"_I don't think I've seen you here before." Alex commented. _

"_It's my first party." Sam confessed. _

"_So you haven't seen the rest of the house?" Alex asked, seeing an opportunity that he was going to grab. _

"_No." She replied. "It looks nice though." _

"_It is." Alex smiled. "Why don't I give you a tour?"_

"_Ok." In the back of her mind she knew that was a bad idea. She didn't know this guy. But the punch was having a weird effect on her. _

_He grabbed her hand and started showing her around the house, even though the house was crowded with people everywhere. He took her upstairs and hoped that his roommate wasn't using their room right now. "And here's my room." He opened the door and let her go in first, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. _

"_Nice." Sam shrugged. "A little messy, but…"_

"_That's because of my roommate." Alex insisted. "I'm always telling him to put away his things, but he never listens." _

"_I have the same problem with my roommate sometimes too." Sam replied, feeling slightly lightheaded. "Mind if I sit down?" She pointed to the bed. _

"_No, go ahead." Alex grinned. _

"_Thanks." Sam smiled, taking a seat. While they were dancing she had felt great, but now she was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol. _

_He sat next to her and waited a moment before leaning in to give her a soft kiss. "You're beautiful, you know that?" _

_She looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights. It had been a really long time since a guy told her that she was beautiful and it felt nice. _

_He stroked her face gently before leaning in and kissing her again. Only this time it wasn't a soft kiss. It was hard and forceful._

_She soon found herself being pinned on the bed with his body on top of hers. His hands started roaming around her body, fondling and stroking places that she didn't want touched. She may be inebriated, but she knew what he was trying to do. And she wasn't going to passively give in. "Alex, please don't." _

"_What's the matter?" He asked in between kisses. _

"_I don't want to do this." She told him. _

"_It'll be fun. I promise." Alex told her as he lifted her shirt up to reveal her bra. _

"_I don't care." She raised her voice. "I don't want to." She started hitting his back in an attempt to get him to stop, but it only made him mad. _

_He grabbed both of her wrists and held them in place. "Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. It's entirely up to you."_

"_I don't want to do this at all." She told him, unable to keep a few tears from falling. _

"_Too bad." Alex told her, letting go of her wrists and pushing up her skirt. _

"_Help!" Sam screamed at the top of her lungs. "Help me! Somebody!" _

"_The music's too loud, Sammy. No one's going to hear you." Alex told her as he started kissing her neck. _

_Sammy. He called her Sammy. That one name was enough to send shivers down her spine and bring a chill to her heart. She hated being called Sammy because it always reminded her of her step-father. He'd always call her Sammy before he…No, she wasn't going to let this guy win. _

"_Help me!" She yelled, praying that someone would hear her voice above the loud music. "Help!"_

"_Keep quiet!" Alex commanded, slapping her in the face. Then he pulled out a small knife from his pocket. "Or else."_

_The slap stung and she rubbed her cheek. When she saw the knife, she was shocked into silence. _

_Martin had been walking back to his room to escape the people at the party. Even though he had joined the fraternity with the reputation of partying frequently, he wasn't really a party guy. He only joined this one because that's the one his father and grandfather belonged to when they were in college. _

_On his way back to his room he passed by Alex and Kevin's room and thought he heard a woman screaming. At first he thought he was just hearing things. After all, the music was loud and maybe his ears were playing some kind of trick on him. But he had to make sure. So he stayed by Alex and Kevin's room, pressing his ear to the door to make sure that everything was ok. That's when he heard the screaming again. _

_It sounded like a woman saying, 'Help! Help me! Somebody!' He briefly wondered if barging into a room at a party like this was a good idea. After all, a lot of people used the upstairs rooms as places for fornication. But that thought was pushed out of his brain when he thought back to the desperation that he heard in the woman's voice. _

_He opened the door just in time to see Alex pull the knife out of his pocket and threaten the woman he had pinned on the bed with it. "What are you doing?" Martin asked looking at Alex and then at the frightened woman Alex had with him. _

"_Nothing man." Alex shrugged, putting the knife back in his pocket. "We were just having some fun together."_

"_Doesn't look like she's having much fun." Martin pointed out. _

"_She is." Alex insisted, stroking Sam's face. But she turned away from his touch. _

"_Are you?" Martin asked the beautiful blonde. _

_Sam looked over at the man who had answered her cry for help, trying to evaluate whether or not he was someone she could trust. He had big, blue eyes and when he looked at her she felt like he genuinely cared about making sure she was ok. She shook her head and whispered, "no, I'm not." _

"_Ok." He nodded. "So you heard the lady. She's not having fun. Maybe you should stop." _

"_Fitzgerald, I don't need you sticking your nose in my business." Alex complained. "You don't have any right being in here. Why don't you just leave?"_

"_Why? So you can rape her?" Martin asked. "I don't think so." _

_Alex rolled his eyes. "Always the boy scout, aren't you? Ready to help anyone in need. Well we don't need your help." _

"_I disagree." There was no way that he was going to leave and just stand by while Alex terrorized this woman. It just wasn't going to happen. He couldn't let it happen. Although he didn't know her, he wasn't going to let Alex hurt her. Martin approached the bed and reached out for the woman's hand. "C'mon. Let's get you out of here." _

"_I said we don't need your help!" Alex yelled, pulling out the knife and swinging it at Martin. _

_Martin moved out of the way of the knife and kept dodging Alex's attacks. After about the tenth time that Alex tried to stab him, Martin was able to kick the knife out of Alex's hand. They soon began fighting hand-to-hand combat style, with Martin landing more punches than Alex. _

_A crowd had gathered in the room and in the hallway, eagerly awaiting to see who was going to win the fight. _

"_What's going on in here?" Nathan, the president of the fraternity asked as he stepped in between Martin and Alex. _

"_Alex was trying to rape a girl and he pulled a knife on me when I tried to stop him." Martin explained. _

_Nathan looked over at Alex with disgust. "Is that true?" _

"_No!" Alex lied. "Look around! Does it even look like I have a girl in here? I wouldn't do something like that."_

_Martin looked around and couldn't find the blonde. She must have left as soon as Alex got up from the bed. Of course he couldn't blame her for leaving so soon, but now no one knew who she was. "She already left, but she was here and he was going to rape her. I don't think he should be a part of this fraternity anymore."_

_Nathan sighed. He wanted to believe Martin because Martin had never lied to him before. "I want to believe you Martin, I really do. But without the girl, there's no proof. And without proof, we can't kick Alex out of the fraternity."_

_Martin sighed. He knew that Nathan was right. So he'd just have to find the blonde, whoever she was. _


	8. Mystery Woman Revealed

A Fool To Think

Chapter Eight

For the next month, Sam did her very best to avoid Martin at all costs. She didn't like the fact that she was starting to doubt his guilt and figured that avoiding him would prevent her from second-guessing her past actions.

Because what if she was wrong ten years ago? What if, by some miracle, Martin was somehow innocent? That would mean that she was a fool and that everything she's been through has been in vain. She wasn't sure that she could handle that. So avoiding him and putting up a defensive wall against him was the best solution. But what if?

She wasn't even sure if it was possible for Martin to be innocent. Although she didn't catch him in the act, she saw the proof and it all added up. Everything pointed to him. The only thing that didn't make sense was why? Why would he do something like that to her, especially since he knew what her step-father did to her and what Alex tried to do to her?

The only reason she agreed to go out for drinks with the rest of the team after the end of a hard case was because Danny convinced her to go and try to relax. She didn't want to spend time outside of work socializing with Martin, but Danny was very convincing. So she was at a nearby bar with everyone. She was still nursing her first beer, while Martin, Vivian and Jack were already on their second drink. Danny was on his third water.

Jack looked over and noticed that Sam hadn't touched her beer. "Sam, how is it that Danny's on his third water, and the rest of us are almost ready for a third round but you are still on your first of the night? Are you just not a big drinker or can you not hold your alcohol?"

"A little bit of both." Sam nervously replied, unable to keep from glancing over at Martin.

When Jack asked Sam that question, Martin couldn't help but look at her and wait for her reply. He of course knew the answer. Sam rarely ever drank, and if she did, it was in the privacy of her own home with people she trusted. That incident with Alex made her think twice about drinking at any type of party or large group.

He could understand why though. She had a bad habit of being a target for creeps. Her father left her when she was six, her stepfather was a horrible man who finally ended up in prison where he belonged, and then Alex was terrible.

It occurred to him that Sam would probably put him on her list of creeps even though he was nothing like the men in her past. That bothered him because he thought that she knew he was nothing like them. Apparently though, he had done something to her so bad that it caused him to be on her creep list.

His gaze met with hers as she answered Jack's question and he knew that she was thinking about that whole incident.

Martin tried his hardest to find out the identity of the mystery woman from the party, but it seemed like no one knew who she was. By Monday morning he had almost given up any hope of finding her. That was until he went to his criminal evidence class.

_Usually he was late to that class and just sat in the back. Today he was actually a few minutes early but he still sat in the back. While he was opening up his notebook so that he could pretend to take notes, he saw a girl walk into the classroom. He noticed that he had blonde hair, but he didn't look twice at her because she had her hair in a bun and wasn't dressed in 'cool' clothes._

_She didn't seem like the same type of girl who was at the party Friday night. It wasn't until she turned and he caught a glimpse of her face that he realized it was the same girl. He'd recognize those brown eyes anywhere. _

_He was about ready to get out of his seat and go talk to her when the professor entered the room and started lecturing. With a sigh he realized that he would have to wait until class was over to talk to her. He found it difficult to pay attention to the professor while he was talking. His full attention was focused on the back of the mystery girl's head as he tried to think of a good way to approach her. _

_The fifty-minute class seemed to last for hours, but it eventually ended and Martin quickly gathered up his books so that he could go talk to the girl. Luckily for him, she was still packing up her notebook and stuffing her pen into a zippered compartment of her backpack. When she stood up and saw him standing there, she froze. _

_She wasn't expecting to see him standing there. Of course she had known that he was in her criminal justice class, but she didn't expect him to come over and talk to her. She bit her lip out of nervousness and waited for him to say something because she wasn't sure what to say in this situation. Maybe some kind of thank you?_

"_Hey." He greeted with a small smile. _

"_Hi." She greeted back, not returning his smile. Her ability to talk returned. "I probably should thank you for what you did Friday. I really do appreciate it." _

"_It was no problem." He assured her. "I just didn't want to see you get hurt. I was hoping that I would get a chance to make sure you were ok, but you left in a hurry."_

"_I just wanted to get out of there." She told him._

"_I guess that's understandable." Martin nodded. _

"_Well I have to get going." She moved to pass him. _

"_Wait!" He called out, making her stop. _

"_What?" She turned around to face him. _

"_Do you have to leave right now?" He was hoping that he could talk to her a little more. Even though he didn't know her very well and didn't even know her name yet, he strangely felt connected to her. _

_She knew that she should say yes. She should just leave right now and avoid men for the rest of her life. Maybe join a convent or something so that she wouldn't subject herself to more heartbreak. _

_But something about this guy made her never want to leave. Perhaps it was the eyes, or his smile. Whatever it was, it made her feel nervous—in a good way. "Why do you want to know?"_

"_I was hoping that maybe we could go somewhere and talk." He told her. _

"_Talk about what?" She asked, still slightly suspicious about him. _

"_Well we could start with exchanging names." He grinned. _

"_I'm Samantha." She told him, realizing that he didn't recognize her from all of the other classes that they had been in together. _

"_And I'm Martin." So Samantha was her name. It was a beautiful name and he was glad to have a name to go with a face._

"_Yeah, I know." She saw the look of confusion on his face about how she knew his name and decided to explain. "We've had a lot of classes together the past couple of years."_

"_We have?" He didn't remember seeing her in any of his other classes. _

"_Yes." She told him, listing them on her hand. "Spanish, English, criminal investigation, criminal law, sociology…"_

"_Ok, I get the idea." He cut her off embarrassed that he didn't remember her. "I'm sorry that I don't remember you." _

"_It's ok." She shrugged it off. "I'm used to it. I'm a pretty forgettable person." _

"_I don't think that's true." He objected. _

"_You forgot me." She pointed out. _

"_True, but that was before I actually talked to you. Now that I've talked to you, I don't think I'll ever forget who you are." He explained. _

_She smiled and shook her head. This guy was different, she could see that already. He was genuine, and that was refreshing. She hoped she wouldn't regret this. "You wanna grab a coffee or something?" _

"_Sure." He smiled. They walked over to the student center and bought coffee from the little coffee shop next to the bookstore. He insisted on paying for her coffee while she found a table for them to sit at. _

"_Thanks." She said as he sat her coffee on the table. _

"_No problem." He said as he sat down across from her. "So how come I haven't seen you around much?" _

"_I'm not a very outgoing person. I don't go out and party a lot." She explained. "The only reason I was at that party was because my roommate dragged me there." _

"_Well I'm sorry that it ended so badly. Alex is a complete and total jerk. I wouldn't be surprised if you're not the first girl that he's tried that with." Martin vented. He was still angry with Alex and was looking in ways to get him kicked out of the fraternity. _

"_It was my own fault. I drank a little bit too much of the punch…"_

"_It wasn't your fault." He interrupted. The fact that she thought this was her fault made him upset. "It was Alex's fault. As soon as he heard you say that you didn't want to he should have stopped. That's what a guy who respects women would do. That's what I'd do." _

"_Well then I guess you're just special because most guys don't respect women." She sighed. _

"_I was just always taught that women should be respected and protected. They should be treated like queens." He told her. _

_She smiled. "I guess you really are special." _

_He smiled at that comment. The fact that she thought he was special made him really happy. "Please don't blame yourself because it really wasn't your fault." He hated to think that she would blame herself for Alex's actions. _

"_Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't." She said, not wanting to talk about this anymore. "So what's your major?" _

"_Criminal justice." He replied, realizing that she wanted to stop talking about that night. "And you?" _

"_Same." She replied. "What do you want to do with that degree?" _

"_I'm hoping to go into the FBI." He told her, expecting the usual oohs and ahhs that girls told him once he said he wanted to be in the FBI. _

_She laughed. "So am I." _

_His interest was piqued. "Really?" _

"_Yeah." She laughed again. _

"_That's so…wow." That feeling he had of being connected to her was only growing stronger every minute he spent with her. That day they spent the entire afternoon together, talking about themselves and laughing about silly things. He skipped a class just so that he could spend more time with her because sitting in the student center talking to her was the most fun that he had in months._

"Well, I guess this is where I call it a night." Sam sighed, getting up from her seat and placing some money on the table to cover her bill.

"Already?" The gang questioned.

"Yeah. I'm pretty tired." Sam told them. She was tired. That wasn't a lie, but she also just wanted to be alone for a while.

"Goodbye then." Everyone said their goodbyes.

She walked out of the bar and headed to her car. Since she'd only had half of a beer she was walking out to her car when she heard Martin call out her name.

He caught up to her and watched as she looked at him curiously.

"What do you want?" She asked.

"I…I just wanted…why won't you talk to me?" He asked. This was his first real opportunity to be alone with her and get her to talk to him in almost a month. He intended on getting at least one answer to all the questions he had. "Why do you keep avoiding me?"

"Because we're not friends anymore. We're just co-workers and that's all we'll ever be." She told him. It hurt her to think that they would never be anything other than friends, but it was true. She wasn't sure she could open her heart to him again.

"Why can't we at least be friends again?" He asked. He missed everything about her, but it was her friendship that he missed most of all. He missed the way they would stay up for hours talking in bed about their hopes and dreams. They'd talk about what they wanted out of life and how they wanted to achieve it. They'd laugh and joke around with each other, and usually the joking would result in a huge tickle fight. He missed that.

She had heard enough of his innocent act. Why was he so insistent on pretending that he didn't know what he had done? "Martin, just admit it! Just admit what you did! Stop playing dumb and just admit that you were the one behind the whole website!"

"What website?" He questioned. He'd never had a website. So what was she talking about?

"Agh!" She exclaimed angrily, walking away from him and heading to her car.

Martin was so intrigued by this new piece of information that he didn't follow her and press her to elaborate. So whatever she was mad about had to do with a website? He shook his head. This new info only led him to formulate more questions.


	9. I've Reached My Limit

A Fool To Think

Chapter Nine

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" Danny asked Sam as they entered the elevator at work. They were heading out to interview the mother of their latest missing person.

"Sure." Sam sighed. "What is it?"

"Well, how should I put this delicately?" He hated having to bring this up with her, but knew that it needed to be addressed. Over the past two weeks, her professional relationship with Martin had deteriorated and Jack was catching on to the fact that two of his team members weren't getting along.

Martin and Sam's interactions were becoming more and more tense, mostly because of a change in Sam's attitude with him. Martin was still trying to be patient and try to develop a working relationship, but Sam seemed to have given up on that. She was short and snappy when she talked to Martin and they usually ended up fighting at work.

Jack was noticing this and was starting to think twice about ever pairing them together, at least not until they worked out their problems. But Jack didn't know the whole story between. Danny didn't even know the whole story between them.

True to his word, he hadn't asked Sam any more questions about her former relationship with Martin although he did make it known to her that he was available if she ever decided that she wanted to talk about it.

He tried many times to get Martin to talk to him, and usually his questions were met with denials and silence. But on Tuesday he hit the jackpot and got further insight into their past relationship.

"_So what's the deal with you and Sam?" Danny asked Martin one day as they were driving to interview a missing person's boyfriend. _

"_What do you mean?" Martin asked, looking down at his watch. _

"_I know that you two used to be a couple." Danny admitted. When he saw the surprised look on Martin's face he decided to be nice and tell him how he knew that. "Sam told me. She said that you two were together in college, she was a fool, you hurt her, and she ended things. But that was all she would tell me."_

"_We were engaged." Martin confessed. _

"_You guys were really serious then, I guess, right?" Danny asked, shocked at the fact that Martin and Sam were once engaged to be married. _

"_I thought we were." Martin sighed. "But then all of a sudden she ended things. And you want to know how she ended things?"_

"_How?" Danny asked, curious and wanting to know more._

"_She wrote me a note saying that it was over and that she didn't love me anymore. Then she had the note delivered to me so that I got it about ten minutes before our wedding was supposed to start." He couldn't help but let the bitterness enter his voice. _

_Danny sat there in the driver's seat for a moment, frozen by Martin's statement. "She left you on your wedding day?"_

"_Yep." Martin nodded. "We were so close to getting married but she didn't want that. She's mad at me for something. God only knows what!"_

"_You mean you don't know what she's mad at you about?" Danny asked. This made no sense. If Martin didn't know what he did, then what was Sam mad about? _

"_I have no idea!" Martin sighed, not really sure why he was telling Danny all of this. He had sworn to himself that he would keep this quiet and not tell anyone at work, but it felt nice to be able to vent and let it all out. "We didn't fight much, and the stuff we did fight about was petty and stupid."_

_He laughed at the silliness of what they used to fight about. "We'd just fight over whose turn it was to pay for dinner or who drank the last of the milk. We didn't fight the night before the wedding. I didn't even see her the night before the wedding because I went and stayed at my best man's apartment." _

"_So you didn't cheat on her or anything?" Danny asked. "Because that's what I thought might have happened when she said you hurt her."_

"_No!" Martin adamantly denied. "I'm not the type of guy who cheats, and I definitely wouldn't have done that to Sam. I loved her and I wanted to marry her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I just don't understand why she called off the wedding and left town. If I did something to hurt her, why couldn't we sit down and talk about it? Why did she feel like she needed to run away from me?" _

"_I don't know." Danny shook his head. "She didn't want to tell me anything else about what happened and I didn't want to press her for any more details." _

"_There's only one clue I have." Martin sighed. "Almost two weeks ago she mentioned something about a website. I think whatever happened revolves around a website. But I don't know what she's talking about. I've never had a website. The only computer skills I have are related to work. But I'm horrible at surfing the internet." _

"_So this could just be a big misunderstanding?" Danny asked, suddenly hopeful. He could see that Martin and Sam cared about each other, even though they both tried desperately to hide it. Sam hid it underneath a layer of anger and hatred, while Martin hid it underneath a layer of indifference. _

"_It could." Martin shook his head. "I'm just so tired of her dumping on me for something I don't know if I even did!"_

"_I think that's understandable." Danny nodded. _

"_And after ten years I've pretty much given up all hope that I'll ever find out what horrible thing she thinks I've done to her." _

"_I wouldn't give up hope." Danny tried to install some hope into his friend. "There's always hope." _

"_I don't think so." As much as it pained him to say this, he knew it was the truth. "I used to think that if I saw her again, I would be able to get her back. I thought that I would be able to get her to tell me what I did wrong and then I'd make amends for it somehow."_

"_But here I am, ten years later with nothing. I can't move forward with my life because I'm still stuck on her. You and Vivian were right when you said I look for something wrong with every woman I go out with and it's because I'm still in love with Sam. But I have to let her go because she doesn't want to have anything to do with me. She won't even be civil to me when we're working."_

"_She has it stuck in her mind that I'm just another creep and she doesn't want to have anything to do with me. I don't know how many times I need to pound my head into the brick wall that is Samantha Spade before I realize that, but I think I've reached my limit."_

"_What are you saying?" Danny asked. _

"_I'm saying that I'm done." Martin explained. "If she wants to think of me as a creep and if she wants to be mad at me, then let her. I'm done letting her words and actions affect me. There's only so much I'm willing to take from her and I'm done. I'm through letting her blame me for everything that happened."_

"_So what exactly does that mean?" _

"_It means that if she wants to treat me horribly at work, I can do the same thing to her." He hated that it has come to this, but was tired of her venting her frustrations out on him when he didn't even know what he had done. "Turnabout is fair play." _

Danny could understand Martin's frustration, yet he could understand Sam's point of view also. While he believed her when she said that Martin did something to hurt her, he also believed Martin when he said he didn't know what he had done to her. So that left him in an awkward position.

He really hoped that this whole ordeal was just a huge misunderstanding and that he could help them get past this. If not for themselves, then for the rest of the team. Constant bickering wasn't going to help them be productive and would only cause problems for everyone.

"Danny? Did you want to ask me something?" Sam asked, getting slightly impatient. It seemed like Danny was a million miles away, thinking about something else and forgetting that they were having a conversation.

"What?" He suddenly realized that he had been ignoring Sam and retreating into his own thoughts. "Sorry about that. I was just thinking about the right way to ask you this without making you mad."

"Oh I don't like the sound of that." She cringed as they got into Danny's car. She clicked her seat belt into place and then watched him as he started the car. "Ok, just ask whatever it is that you want to ask me."

"Well, I know that you said you didn't want to talk about this, but…"

"You want to talk about Martin?" She guessed.

"Well, yeah." Danny nodded as he pulled out of the parking garage and onto the street.

"Why?" She questioned.

"I was talking to him earlier this week and he told me about the fact that you two were going to get married. He told me about how you left him at the alter and he said that…"

"I don't really care what he said." Sam interrupted Danny.

"He doesn't know what he's done to you." Danny decided to try and play devil's advocate for Martin.

"I find that hard to believe." Sam told him.

"It's what he says." Danny countered. "Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what happened between the two of you, but this is what I see going on right now. I honestly believe that Martin has no idea what he's done to you and you seem to think that Martin has done something bad to you. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding. All I'm saying is that…"

Sam had heard enough of Danny's devil's advocate pleas and interrupted him in the middle of his spiel. "You want to know what Martin did?"

Of course he wanted to know. He was extremely curious about the mystery surrounding Martin and Sam. "What did he do?" Danny asked.

"Promise me you won't tell anyone." She commanded.

"I promise." Danny swore.

"And I mean you can't tell a single person, not even a priest if you go to confession. This never leaves this car. Understand?" She explained.

"I understand. Sam, you have to know by now that you can trust me." Danny told her.

"I know. Why else do you think I would tell you?" She took a deep breath before starting. "It all started about a week before our wedding day…"


	10. The Website

A Fool To Think

Chapter Ten

"It all started about a week before our wedding day…" She didn't really want to continue on with the story, but figured maybe it would help to let someone else know. Maybe it would be a good idea to get another person's opinion.

Danny hated to do this, but had to. "Sam, as much as I really want to know about this and I do, we're here." Sometime during their talk they had arrived at the house where they were supposed to interview the mother of their missing person.

Sam looked over and saw that through the window that they were at the house. "Ok."

"Will you still tell me later?" Danny asked, hoping that she wouldn't close herself off to him. He really wanted to know what Martin did so that he could find a way to make everything better for them.

"Sure." She shrugged it off. Maybe this was a sign that she wasn't supposed to tell anyone what happened. She got out of the car and waited for Danny before heading up to the door.

* * *

That evening, after they found the missing person, Danny searched the empty office for Sam. Just as he had feared, Sam had clammed up after they were interrupted. On the way back to the office from interviewing the mother she had remained quiet and didn't go back to explaining what had happened between her and Martin. 

It upset him. He was so close to finding out the truth but then it was ripped away from him. He just wanted to know what happened but the universe didn't seem like it wanted him to know. And that was just cruel.

He found Sam standing on the balcony and decided to go out and talk to her. Maybe he could finally find out the truth. "Hey. Good job today."

"Thanks." She replied, not looking over at him. "You too."

He went over and stood by her, leaning against the railing. "So you never finished your story today…"

"No I didn't, did I?" She knew that he would call her on that and also that he would still want to know what happened. She thought about not telling him, but she had already committed to telling him. Teasing him by holding it over his head like that would only be mean.

"No. Any chance you feel like continuing it right now?"

"Why not?" She laughed. "But you still can't tell anyone about what I'm about to tell you."

"We already covered this Sam. I won't tell anyone. I swear on my life, if I tell anyone then I should be assigned only mountains of paperwork until I retire." Danny grinned.

She couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Ok. I believe you Danny, but it's just that this is really embarrassing and the last thing I want is for a lot of people to know."

"You don't have to worry about that." Danny assured her.

"Ok." She composed her thoughts before starting to explain everything. "Well like I said before, it all started about a week before Martin and I were supposed to get married…"

"_I have to go, or else I'll be late again." Martin told her. She had him cornered up against the door in an intense lip lock. _

"_I know you have to go." She smiled. "I just want one more kiss." _

"_Ok." He couldn't deny her one more kiss. "One more kiss then I really have to go." _

"_Absolutely." She grinned, pulling him close and passionately kissing him. Once she was satisfied, she released her grip on him and backed away with a huge smile on her face. "Ok. Now you can leave." _

"_You always do that!" He exclaimed. _

"_Do what?" She asked innocently._

"_You make it impossible for me to want to leave." He playfully complained. _

"_I'm just trying to make you see why you should come back." She explained. _

"_Oh believe me, I know why I should come back." A grin appeared on his face as he moved in to give her another kiss. _

_But she held up her hand to stop him. "Don't you have to be going so that you're not late? I don't think your mother will appreciate it if you're late for lunch with her again." _

"_Probably not." He sighed. "Why don't you come with me? Then after lunch we could ditch my mother and go to the park or something."_

"_It's tempting, it really is, but you know that your mother and I don't get along. Sorry, but you're going to have to go alone this time." She explained. "Now go before you're late." _

"_Ok, fine." Martin sighed. "I'll be back later." _

"_I'll be counting on that." Sam replied, closing the door behind him and leaning against it. _

_Everything in her life was finally coming together. She had graduated college with honors, she had a few friends that really cared about her, and she had Martin. She was a long way away from the scared, abused little girl that she used to be. She was in control of her life and she was happy. _

_When the phone rang, she wondered if it was Martin. Sometimes he would call her on his cell phone only moments after leaving her apartment to tell her that he missed her. It was a little gesture, but it meant a lot to her when he'd do that. It was nice to know that he cared about her. "Hello?" She greeted as she picked up the phone. _

"_Hey, are you the girl from the website?" The male voice asked. _

"_What website?" Sam asked, confused. She had no idea what this guy was talking about._

"_The website." The guy said. "You know, the website!" _

"_I think you have the wrong number." Sam told him. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about."_

"_Fine." He sighed. "Thanks for nothing." _

_After the guy hung up on her, she stared at the phone. Why was a guy calling about a website?_

"I didn't think much about it at the time." Sam explained. "I thought that it was just some random wrong number."

"But it wasn't?" Danny guessed.

"No." Sam shook her head. "It wasn't random and it kept happening for the next few days. More and more guys would call and ask if I was the one from the website."

"Did you tell Martin about what was going on?" Danny asked, already guessing that she hadn't.

"No." She answered. "I didn't see the point in telling him about it. It made no sense to me and at the time I didn't want bother him with it."

"So then what happened?" Danny was growing more and more curious as the seconds ticked by.

"Well, the phone calls only increased as the week went on…"

_It was the night before their wedding and Martin had left about twenty minutes ago. She was going to go to be early and get plenty of sleep for the next day when the phone rang. She groaned because she wasn't sure if she wanted to pick it up. There was a fifty-fifty chance that it was Martin, or it could be one of those guys wanting to talk to the girl from some website._

_She thought briefly about just not answering the phone at all, but didn't want to miss a call from Martin so she picked it up. "Hello?" _

"_You wouldn't happen to be the girl from the website, would you?" The male voice on the other end asked. _

"_No." Sam sighed. "You have the wrong number." _

"_Are you sure?" The guy was disappointed. "I know I copied it from the website perfectly." _

_She had an idea to get to the bottom of this whole thing and walked over to her desk so that she could get on her computer. "Why don't you tell me the address of this website and I'll tell you if you have the right number?" _

_The guy laughed. "You want to go to the website?" _

"_Well a lot of guys have been calling me lately asking the same question that you're asking. I think I deserve to know if someone is falsely giving out my phone number. Don't you?" She reasoned. _

"_I guess so." He finally replied. "Ok."_

_After Sam typed in the address that the guy gave her, she was shocked by what she saw. It was her. She was the girl on the website. There was a photo gallery that held naked pictures of her in the shower and various pictures of her getting intimate with Martin. How did this happen? Who could have done such a thing?_

_When she finally regained her composure, she asked, "where did you hear about this website?" _

"_All of my fraternity brothers were raving about it so I figured that I needed to check it out." The guy replied. _

"_Do you know who set it up?" She was aware that her voice was shaking, but couldn't control it. She needed to know who was responsible for that._

"_I don't know his name, but I heard it was some guy at Phi Delta Theta. I guess this is his girlfriend and he decided to share her with the world, which is lucky for the rest of us who can't seem to get women like that." He laughed. "I bought some of the videos…"_

"_Videos?" She gasped. "There are videos?" _

"_Yeah." The guy replied. "They are absolutely worth every penny." _

"_Thanks." She told the guy before hanging up. Tears started to flow down her cheeks as she tried to process all of this information. She examined the website more and found that the guy was right. There were videos. There was one with various scenes of her in the shower and a couple of her having sex with Martin. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Clicking on the photo gallery was even more heartbreaking. There were over two thousand pictures of her. _

_Who could have done this to her? She refused to believe that guy when he said that it was a frat guy at Phi Delta Theta. She refused to believe that Martin would do this to her. Not her Martin. Martin would never do something like this to her. Right? _

_She searched the entire website, looking for any information on the Webmaster. She found a contact sheet with a name and an e-mail address. Sure enough, it gave Martin's name and an e-mail address that looked like something he would pick: she saw that, she couldn't contain it anymore. She was going to be sick. So she ran into her bathroom and proceeded to fall apart. How could Martin do something like this to her? Didn't he love her?_

"Wow." That was all that Danny could say once Sam was done with her story. That was the last thing he ever expected to hear.

"I'll spare you the rest of the details, but that's the general idea of what happened." She wiped away a few tears that had fallen while she was speaking.

"But how do you know for sure that it was really Martin?" Danny asked.

"I took a closer look at the angles of the pictures so that I could figure out where the camera had to be. I found cameras hidden in gifts that Martin had given me. There was a music box with a hidden camera, and a figurine with a hidden camera. There was also one hidden in the showerhead of my bathroom."

"But maybe someone else planted them there." Danny argued.

"I don't think so." Sam shook her head. "Look, you wanted to know what happened. That's what happened."

"I'm so sorry that you had to go through that." Danny said, bringing her into a hug.

She let herself be hugged by him and tried really hard not to start crying.

"Sam, it's alright to cry. You can let it out." Danny encouraged her.

"I just…I've tried so hard to just forget about it and move on, but…" She sobbed.

"It's ok." Danny assured her. Sam needed a friend right now, and he was glad to be able to help her. "It's ok."

Martin walked back into the office, having forgotten his cell phone. He had gotten halfway to his apartment by the time he realized that his phone wasn't with him. As much as he didn't want to have to trek all the way back to the office, he knew that he had to. So he reluctantly came back.

After retrieving his cell phone from his desk, he glanced out to the balcony. He was surprised to see Danny and Sam out there, and even more surprised to see them hugging. A surge of jealousy and anger raged within him as he finally realized the real reason why Danny was always so concerned with finding out the story behind his relationship with Sam.

It wasn't because he was trying to be a good friend and it wasn't because he was trying to be supportive. It was because Danny wanted to make sure that Martin wouldn't be an obstacle when he went after Sam for himself. Why couldn't Danny have just been honest with him instead of pretending? Well if Danny wanted Sam, it was fine with him. He was done with her anyway. Good luck to him. He'd likely need it.


	11. Cold Shoulder

A Fool To Think

Chapter Eleven

Martin sat at his desk, watching with interest as Danny and Sam traded jokes back and forth at the conference table. They were doing paperwork and having too much fun with it. Ever since he caught them hugging last week, he couldn't help but watch them closely.

He kept telling himself that he was through with Sam. He was through trying to be nice to her and holding out hope that they could be together. But that didn't mean that he wanted her to be with Danny. It wasn't that he thought Danny would hurt her. He knew Danny well enough to know that Danny wouldn't. He just didn't want to see her move on without him.

They seemed pretty cozy together on the balcony though. He couldn't deny that it looked suspicious. After all, it was after office hours when everyone was supposed to be gone. Yet there they were, hugging on the balcony, completely oblivious to the world around them. That image of them was burned into his brain and every time he thought about it the jealousy and anger returned.

Then he had to remind himself that he had no right to be jealous anymore. He had no claim on Sam anymore and she could do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted to do it with. Seeing the way she was leaning in closer to Danny to tell him something made it seem to Martin that Danny was the person she wanted now.

Sam laughed at Danny's horrible joke before turning back to the seemingly endless amount of paperwork that awaited her. A few minutes later though, she leaned in closer to him and lowered the volume of her voice so that the people around them couldn't hear her. "You know, I don't think I thanked you for last week. It really helped to talk about everything."

"No problem." Danny replied. "I'm happy to help you anytime. And my offer still stands. If you want to investigate it further, I'll help you with it."

"I don't know." Sam sighed. "A part of me wants to investigate it and make sure that Martin really was the one behind it, but there's a part of me that is afraid of what I might find if I go digging into the past."

"What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that you'll find out he really was behind it or that he wasn't?" Danny asked.

"I know it sounds strange, but I'm more afraid that I'll find out that he wasn't behind it because that would mean that I left him at the alter for no good reason. It would mean that every decision I have made since finding out about the website was based on false information and was wrong. It would mean that I was a willing accomplice in whoever wanted to ruin both my life and Martin's."

She didn't want to think about what that would really mean because it would be too much to comprehend. If Martin really was innocent and didn't set up the cameras and website, then who did? Who had enough access to her life and held such a grudge that they would want to ruin her life like that? "I'm not sure I could face him if after all this time he was really innocent."

"Why don't we deal with that if and when it happens?" Danny asked. "We don't know anything for sure right now. Let me help you sort all of this out. Ok?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Ok."

"Good." Danny smiled. "We'll get answers to your questions. I promise you."

"You're a great friend." She smiled.

"I try." Danny smiled. "But lately Martin's been giving me the cold shoulder. Do you know what that's about?"

"Nope, sorry. You know we don't talk to each other." She glanced over at Martin, only to see that he was looking at her. Their eyes met for a few moments before Martin turned away to look at his computer screen.

"Didn't think so, but thought I'd ask anyway." Danny told her. "I'm sure it's nothing."

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "I'm sure it's nothing."

"You don't think he's jealous about the attention I've been giving you, do you?" Danny asked. It had occurred to him that maybe Martin was jealous of his close friendship with Sam, since Martin and Sam couldn't even be in the same room without fighting.

Of course he understood from Sam's point of view why she was so angry with him. But there was still a large part of Danny that didn't fully believe that Martin was the one behind the website. That seemed like such a cruel and heartless thing to do, and he couldn't picture Martin being able to disrespect Sam like that.

Then again, there was evidence. The evidence pointed towards Martin and made him look extremely guilty. But Martin wasn't that kind of guy, right?

"I'm going to go get some more coffee." Sam sighed. "Do you want some too?"

"No thanks." Danny shook his head. As soon as Sam was out of earshot, he walked over to Martin's desk. "Hey. Haven't heard much from you lately. Wanted to make sure that the paperwork hasn't buried you alive over here."

"It hasn't." Martin replied, not responding to Danny's attempt at humor. "Just working."

"And avoiding me for some reason." Danny pointed out. "Care to tell me what it is or should I guess?"

"I'm not avoiding you." Martin denied it, putting down his pen and leaning back in his chair. "If I was avoiding you I would be making an excuse to leave right now but I'm not. I'm here talking to you, aren't I?"

"Yeah, but you're being defensive and weird." Danny was tired of playing this game and decided to be upfront with Martin. "Is this new attitude towards me because of the time I've been spending with Sam?"

"No." Martin quickly denied.

"I don't believe you." Danny called him on it. "Are you jealous of my friendship with her? Because I can be friends with both of you."

"But you're not just friends with her, are you?" Martin asked. He hadn't meant to bring that up, but Danny goaded him into it.

"What does that mean?" Danny asked confused about what Martin was trying to imply.

"It means that I know about your little relationship with Sam. So there's no reason to keep it a secret anymore." Martin explained.

"What relationship with Sam?" Danny asked, caught off guard by Martin's statement. "Sam and I are just friends."

"Then why were you two looking so cozy on the balcony last week?"

"Last week?" Danny then realized that Martin had seen them talking last week. "That was innocent."

"So you don't have any interest in Sam?" Martin asked, hoping the answer was yes. He wasn't sure he could handle it if Danny and Sam got together. It would be too much for him.

"The only interest I have in Sam is as a friend." Danny promised Martin. "She's beautiful, smart, and funny, but not my type. First of all, she is somehow immune to my charms. I'm still not sure how that happened. I didn't know that a woman could be immune to the Taylor charm, but she proved me wrong."

This elicited a small chuckle from Martin, so Danny continued. "And secondly, you didn't actually think that I would actively go after a woman that you're obviously still in love with. Did you?"

"I'm not still in love with her." Martin denied passionately, even though Danny was probably right. He hated that he still loved her even after she left him at the alter and kept accusing him of things he didn't even know about.

Danny rolled his eyes at his friend's stubbornness. "You can tell me that I'm wrong until the day you die but it won't change the truth. You still love her. I can see it on your face when you look at her."

"Even if, and that's a big if, I was still in love with her it wouldn't matter.

"I can't say I blame her though. If you really did that to her, then I wouldn't want to talk to you either. I probably would have

Martin looked at him with interest. "Did she tell you what happened between us? Do you know about it now?"

Danny could see that there was no good way out of this conversation. "Ok, yes. I do know what happened between you two."

"Then tell me!" Martin exclaimed. "Please tell me what she thinks I've done."

"I can't. She made me swear not to tell anyone, including you." Danny told him.

"C'mon!" Martin exclaimed, desperate to know what Danny had found out. "You can't do this to me. You can't keep this from me. Don't I deserve to know what she's saying about me?"

Danny sighed. "Look I'd like to help you out, but I don't want to double-cross Sam. She told me not to tell you and I'm going to honor her wishes."

He felt torn because he wanted to honor Sam's wishes but he also wanted to be a good friend to Martin at the same time. "This is all I am going to say about it. I'm not one hundred percent sure that actually do what she's saying you did. Personally I think you might have been framed, although I'm not sure how. But I am determined to figure it out."

"Figure it out?" Martin was confused. "How?"

"Sam has agreed to let me play detective. I'm going to get to the bottom of this case and find out the whole truth." Danny explained.

"I could tell you the whole truth if someone would just tell me what she thinks I've done!" Martin complained.

"Well hopefully I'll be able to find out exactly what happened and prove that you had nothing to do with it." He leaned in closer to Martin and lowered his voice. "Though if I find out that you actually did do what Sam thinks you did, I will be the first one in line to make your life miserable."

Martin waited until Danny went back to the conference table before whispering, "hate to break it to you Danny, but it already is."


	12. Who Would Have A Motive?

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twelve

"Ok. So is there anyone else that you can think of that would want to ruin your relationship with Martin?" Danny asked Sam as they sat in her apartment. They had a pizza sitting on her coffee table and were sitting on the floor eating and talking.

Danny had come over to her apartment on this Wednesday evening so that he could gain some more facts about the website since Sam had agreed to let him investigate it. So far, they had just gone over the basic facts that she had already told him about. The clues all pointed to Martin being the one behind it, but something just didn't feel right about this whole thing.

"I don't know…" Sam sighed as she took a drink of her water. "I didn't have many friends, yet alone enemies."

"What about Martin?" Danny questioned. "Is there anyone who would want to sabotage his relationship with you in order to hurt him?"

Sam was quiet for a moment as she thought back to that time. Martin had a lot of friends through the fraternity and also because he was a very outgoing person. He also had dated a lot of women before he met Sam. Any one of them might have wanted to get back at him for dumping her but she doubted that any of them would go to this kind of extreme for payback. Except…there was one woman that stuck out in Sam's mind.

"About a year before Martin and I started dating, he dated someone else that wasn't completely mentally healthy. I think she had bi-polar disorder or something. She wasn't emotionally stable and he mentioned something to me about how she wouldn't leave him alone after he ended things with her. She called him a lot and refused to give up on him no matter how many times he told her that he was done with her."

"Do you have the name of this woman?" Danny asked, getting his pen ready to write down the name.

"Amber. Amber…gosh I can't think of her last name anymore." Sam sighed. "I bet Martin would know what it is though."

"Ok." Danny wrote down Amber's name and then a question mark to signify that he needed to ask Martin for the last name. "Anyone else?"

"Alex Silverman." Sam told Danny. "You might want to look into him too. Alex had a grudge against Martin."

"Why would he have any kind of grudge against Martin? Did Martin steal his girlfriend or something?" Danny joked.

"Actually, it was something like that." Sam replied quietly, picking up another piece of pizza and placing it on her plate. "I'm going to warn you that this is kind of a long story."

"That's ok." Danny assured her. "I like stories."

Sam smiled before continuing to tell Danny the whole story of the night she was attacked by Alex and how she met Martin. "Martin finally convinced me to report Alex to the campus police about a week after it happened. I filed a report and there was an investigation. During the investigation, about twelve other girls came forward and admitted that Alex had done the same thing to them—only they weren't lucky enough to have someone like Martin come to their rescue."

"So this guy had done this to twelve other girls on campus?" Danny was shocked and appalled by Alex's behavior. He would never understand how someone could do that to a woman.

"Yes, and he might have done it to more girls. Who really knows? There were only twelve that spoke up but that doesn't mean that there were others that were too ashamed or scared to come forward." Sam explained.

"So what happened to Alex?" Danny was curious.

"Well first he was kicked out of the fraternity, and then two weeks later he was kicked out of the college. They forbid him from even stepping foot on the campus ever again." Sam told him.

"And Alex blamed Martin for all of this?" Danny guessed.

"Yeah. He did. He was really angry with Martin." She started to recall their last encounter with Alex all those years ago.

_Martin and Sam walked along the sidewalk. It was a nice day and they decided to go for a walk. Since their first meeting, they had grown to be really good friends and she couldn't help finding herself wanting to be more than just friends with him. But she didn't know if that's what he would want too. _

"_I want to ask you something." She told Martin as they were walking. "And I want you to answer honestly. Ok?"_

"_Ok." Martin agreed. He just hoped this wasn't one of those 'does this pair of jeans make me look fat' questions. There was no good answer to that. _

_She took a deep breath before laying it all out on the line. "Would you ever consider going on a date with me?" _

_He was surprised by her question, but in a good way. To be completely honest, he was trying to find the right way to ask her out on a date without seeming like he was trying too hard. He didn't want to seem like he was hitting on her like Alex did. He stopped walking and faced her. "Really? Are you serious?"_

"_Well, yeah." She was nervous but her question was out there, dangling in the wind. She couldn't take it back now. _

"_I'd really like to date you." Martin admitted. "I just didn't know if you'd want to."  
_

_She couldn't help but smile. "Oh I definitely want to." _

"_Great." He smiled back at her. "So how about Friday? We could go out to dinner?" _

"_Sounds good." She couldn't believe her luck. He actually wanted to date her. She was so happy that she felt like kissing him. Without thinking, she leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips. _

_He was also surprised that she was kissing him, but wasn't about to complain. He reached up and touched her face, gently caressing her cheek as they continued to kiss. _

_They stayed there on the sidewalk, kissing for a few more moments before she pulled away. "Sorry. Got a little carried away there."_

"_Don't be sorry." He told her with a grin. "In case you didn't notice, I'm not complaining."_

"_But still…" _

"_It's ok." He assured her. "That was an amazing kiss."  
_

"_Really?" She grinned. _

"_Really." He nodded. "We should do that again sometime." _

"_Maybe we will." She teased him with a wink. _

_He chuckled and grinned at her. "Why don't we go get some coffee?" _

"_Sounds good to me." She agreed. _

"_Good." As they started walking, he found the courage to grab a hold of her hand. He looked to her in order to know if it was ok to her if they held hands and was once again surprised by her. She wrapped her other hand around his arm, holding him close to her. They were enjoying themselves until Alex suddenly appeared in front of them. _

"_Look at the happy couple." Alex exclaimed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. _

"_What you do you want?" Martin asked defensively, glaring at Alex. _

"_Well isn't this cute?" Alex sneered. "The two of you out together. Out for a little stroll?" _

"_What do you want?" Martin asked again, losing his patience with Alex. _

"_I bet you both are pretty pleased with yourselves. I mean you've managed to run my entire life in less than a month. I'm out of the fraternity and out of school. That's impressive."_

"_You ruined your own life when you started assaulting women." Martin pointed out. _

"_I didn't assault them!" Alex yelled. "All of them were willing participants." _

"_Sam wasn't." Martin told Alex. "She didn't want you."_

"_But apparently she wants you." Alex scoffed. "Well that's fine. I didn't really want her anyway. But be warned. I don't appreciate the fact that you two have ruined my life. Karma will come back to you and it will make sure that you pay for what you have done to me."_

"Did you press criminal charges against Alex for what he did?" Danny asked once Sam was done with her story.

"No. I didn't, but a few of the other girls did." Sam explained. "His father was a lawyer though and managed to get the charges dropped. All he had to do was complete some community service."

"Do you think that it's at all possible that Alex was the one behind the website?" The more Danny heard about this Alex guy, the more he didn't like the guy.

"I don't know." She ran her hands through her hair. "He definitely has the motive. If you had seen his eyes when he was talking to us, you would have seen the hatred he felt for us. But…he didn't have the means to get into my apartment. I don't understand how he could have planted those cameras."

"What about your roommate?" Danny asked.

"Kelly?" Sam asked, confused. "What about her?"

"Do you think that maybe she helped Alex?" Danny wasn't sure what he was saying right now. He was just letting his mind wander and trying to brainstorm possible theories.

"Kelly wouldn't have helped Alex." Sam defended her roommate. "She knew exactly what kind of scum Alex was and wouldn't have helped him. She was my friend."

"What's Kelly's last name?" Danny asked, writing Kelly's name down on the suspects list.

"Why do you want to know?" Sam questioned. "You don't seriously think that Kelly had anything to do with this, do you?"

"It's possible." Danny shrugged. "It's entirely possible that she helped Alex or I could be completely wrong about the whole thing. I'm not sure yet. But I think we should cover all the possibilities here."

"Kelly is not a possibility. Trust me, I lived with her for four years. I think that I know her pretty well." Sam adamantly told her friend.

"Well you also thought that you knew Martin pretty well too but you still think that he was the one responsible for…" he stopped himself before completing that thought, unable to believe that he just said that to her. He hadn't meant to say that and immediately felt bad about it.

She couldn't believe that he was saying that to her. She knew that he didn't believe that Martin was the one who set up the website and she had to admit that there were doubts in her mind too, but still. It was unlike Danny to throw it in her face.

"Sam, I'm sorry. I…"

"Don't worry about it." Sam shrugged. "I think that…"

"Sam, I really am sorry. I didn't mean to…" He felt really bad about what he said to her and hoped that she wasn't mad at him for it.

"Don't worry about it." Sam gave him a small smile in hopes of making him see that she wasn't mad. "Anyway, Kelly's last name was Donaldson. But I think she got married a few years ago and I don't remember what her new last name is."

"Are you still in contact with her?" Danny asked.

"No. We haven't talked to each other in a few years." Sam admitted.

"Ok." He decided to leave this subject and go back to his brainstorming.


	13. Tom Henderson

A Fool To Think

Chapter Thirteen

"So is there anyone else that you can think of that might want to get revenge on either of you?"

"Not really." Sam shook her head. "I mean, my step father would probably love to get revenge on me, but he's been in jail for almost fifteen years. There's no way he could have done the website."

"Why is your step father in jail and why would he want to get revenge on you?" Danny asked, curious about this new piece of information concerning Sam's life.

"I was the one that put him behind bars." Sam explained, not wanting to go into great detail about it.

"Why though?" Danny asked.

Sam sighed. It looked like there was no way out and she might as well tell Danny about what happened. She knew that she could trust him to keep it a secret. After all, he seemed like a good secret-keeper.

"My step father liked to drink—a lot. And when he drank, he'd hit my mother. At least that's how it started. He'd hit her, but eventually he grew tired of always using her as a punching bag. It didn't give him nearly as much joy anymore and he searched for something else to do in addition to hitting her. That's when he started to notice me as more than just an annoyance. He would slip into my room at night after staggering back from a local bar and he would…"

She had to stop for a moment to compose herself so that she didn't start bawling in public. Her head tilted down and she shut her eyes tightly to keep tears from escaping.

Danny had a pretty good idea what Sam was going to say next and figured that he would try and spare her from having to say it out-loud. "It's ok Sam. You don't have go on. I can figure the rest out."

"No." She shook her head. "I think I have to continue. He would come in at night and rape me." She wiped her eyes dry again and took a deep breath. "At first, I didn't know what to do. I was only thirteen at the time and I had no idea how to make him stop. I tried to tell my mom about it but she was in complete denial about everything and refused to believe me."

"So how did you…how did he end up in jail?" Danny asked. His heart was breaking for Sam after learning everything that she had to go through during her childhood. He knew how painful it could be when your parents proved to be people that you couldn't trust to protect you. His own father was abusive and that left him with emotional and a few physical scars. He could only imagine what it was like for Sam.

"When I was fifteen, he got really drunk and came stumbling into the house yelling something about someone stealing his shirt. Or maybe it was his pants. Anyway, he was yelling about something stupid and untrue." She couldn't remember if he yelled about someone stealing his pants or his shirt, but decided that it didn't really matter.

"I guess my mom got in his way and they started fighting. I was asleep, but their screaming woke me up. I climbed out of bed and went to see what was going on. I got there just in time to see him throw her against the wall. Then he started kicking her in the ribs until she was coughing up blood."

"All he wanted was for her to shut up. He kept telling her to shut up and if she had, she would've been ok. But she kept screaming…she kept screaming. He finally picked up a vase full of flowers and knocked her out. Then he saw me watching."

"I'm almost afraid to find out what he did next." Danny admitted.

"I ran into my room and called the police, but he kicked down the door and raped me. By the time the police came, he was starting to beat on me too. They arrested him and took my mom and I to the hospital."

"So then your mom pressed charges, right?" Danny assumed that Sam's mother would finally press charges and remove both herself and her daughter from this horrible man.

"Nope." Sam shook her head. "She refused to press charges against him. But it didn't matter because the police had me as a witness and they had DNA evidence linking him to the crime."

"So what happened next then?" Danny asked. He knew it must be painful for Sam to talk about, but couldn't help wanting to know the rest of the story.

"My mom was really badly beaten and two days after it happened. She had a collapsed lung, broken ribs, and a serious head injury from the vase he hit her with. Two days after the attack she died." She thought back to the last conversation she had with her mom.

"_I can't believe you! You ungrateful little brat!" Louise, Sam's mother, yelled. "How can you say such terrible things about your step father after everything that he's done you and for us?" _

"_What has he done mom?" Sam yelled, pacing around the room. "Please tell me! What has he done for us except beat you and rape me?"  
_

"_You shouldn't lie like that!" Louise scolded. "You're step father's a good man and you shouldn't make such false claims."  
_

"_Wake up mom! You're married to a monster. Who do you think put you in here to begin with? Who do you think has been hitting you for the past five years? Tom! That's who!" _

"_I will not listen to your lies young lady!" Louise yelled. "If you have such a problem with Tom, then why don't you just move out? Why do you feel the need to go and have him arrested?" _

"_Because he's hurt us!" Sam yelled, even though she knew it was useless. Her mom would never believe that Tom was a bad man. No matter how many times Tom hit her or how many times he sent her to the hospital, her mother would forever be devoted to that man. That's just the way her mom was and she had to accept it. _

"_Just get out!" Louise yelled. "I don't want to see you again Samantha. As of right now, you're dead to me and I don't have a daughter." _

"_Fine." Sam told her defiantly as she headed for the door of the hospital room. "It'll be great to get away from you and your delusions about how we're all just one big happy family."_

"She died the next day and murder was added to Tom's already long list of charges."

"I'm sorry Sam." Danny didn't know what else to say to her. He couldn't believe how much she has had to go through. "I can't believe that your mother would still side with Tom after everything he did to her."

"She loved him. She didn't see his faults. She didn't see the violent streak or the abuse. All she saw was the charming, charismatic guy that swept her off her feet before he showed his true self. She didn't want to believe that he was a monster so she didn't. She made excuses for him and repressed everything he did to her. And he killed her."

"So Tom was arrested and went on trial?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded. "I testified at the trial about what kind of a man he was and the jury sentenced him to twenty-five years to life in prison."

"Well then I guess at least we can rule him out as a suspect in the website." Danny reasoned out loud.

"Yeah." Sam agreed. "It would be really hard for him to do that from prison."

"So why didn't you press charges against Alex after what he did to you?" Danny asked, curious.

"I didn't want to have to testify. I didn't want to have to go through that again." Sam admitted. "It was hard enough the first time. Although I wanted him to get what he deserved, I wasn't ready to do that."

"I'm sorry." Danny really felt bad for her but he knew that she would be ok. She was a strong person.

"It's not your fault." She shrugged.

He didn't want to pry, but felt like this was his best chance at learning more about Sam. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened to you after your mom died?"

"Well after she died, I didn't have any family left, so I was placed in the foster care system. The foster care family I was placed with had six other foster kids living there. They were nice enough people, but that place was nothing more to me than a place to eat, sleep and study. I worked really hard to get a full scholarship to college and was determined to make something out of myself. I was determined to show my family that I was worth something because they never thought I was."

"I think you've definitely done that." Danny told her. "Look at what you've accomplished so far."

"Maybe." Sam gave him a small smile. She knew that she had a lot to be proud of herself for. She had a good apartment, a great job that she was wonderful at and loved, and good friends. So why did she feel like such a failure?

"What's his name?" Danny asked.

"Who?" Sam asked, confused about whose name Danny wanted.

"Your step father." Danny replied. "What's your step father's name? I just want to look into it and make sure that he had nothing to do with it."

"Tom Henderson." Sam sighed.

"I'm really sorry that you had to go through that Sam. I know that it had to have been really hard." He really felt bad for her and wished that it hadn't happened to her. He was starting to see a pattern though.

She had the unfortunate luck of being a victim of sexual crimes. Whether it was rape or exploitation, she was a prime target for men to use her. He vowed to do everything he could to protect her from that in the future—starting with finding out for sure who was behind the website.

"Hey it's ok." Sam shrugged. "Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?"

"Right." Danny gave her a smile.


	14. When, Where and How

A Fool To Think

Chapter Fourteen

Two days later, Martin entered the break room to find Sam there. She was standing with her back to him, stirring some sugar into her cup of coffee. He thought about leaving and just coming back when she was gone, but decided against it. He walked over to the coffee machine. "Hey." He greeted softly.

She looked over at him and then back at her coffee. "Hey."

"How are you?" He asked hesitantly. He didn't want to keep fighting with her, but lately that's all they had been doing. He wanted to at least try to be civil to each other because all of this fighting was making him miserable.

"Fine." She replied coldly. She wasn't sure what he was trying to do. Was he actually trying to start a real conversation with her or was he just waiting, lulling her into a false sense of security before launching into another one of their fighting matches?

"That's good." Martin nodded. "Do you like New York so far?"

"It's ok I guess." She started to leave the break room.

"Samantha?"

She heard him use her full name, just as she had instructed him to. Only this time his tone wasn't harsh and full of venom. She had to wonder why he wasn't picking a fight with her. Usually that's all they did when they were together. Something stopped her from continuing on her way out of the break room. Instead she turned around to face him. "What?"

This was the moment he'd been thinking about for days. They were alone and actually not fighting. This was his chance to try and make some inroads with her. Maybe it wasn't too late to at least patch up their friendship. Maybe there was still a chance to have her be a part of his life, even if it was only as a friend. It was now or never. "I..."

"You what?" She asked impatiently. "I have work to do Martin."

"Never mind." He chickened out.

"Ok." She turned to leave, feeling slightly disappointed. She wasn't sure what she had expected.

When she left, he walked over to the wall and softly banged his head up against it a few times.

* * *

Danny walked over to Sam's desk and leaned against it. "I've been doing some work on that little project and I think I have some leads." 

"Really?" Sam asked, looking up at him with some hope. "What kind of leads?"

"Well I looked into that website address and found the domain where it was registered. They're sending over the records of who registered that website now and it should get here later today." Danny explained.

"So you think that it could lead us to the person behind the whole thing?" Sam asked.

"I think so. It could directly link it to Alex." He sighed. "Or it could lead us back to Martin again."

"I know that's a good possibility." Sam told him.

"If someone set him up, they sure did a good job. I mean, think about it. Someone had to have intimate knowledge of your relationship with Martin. They had to know about the gifts so that when they planted the cameras it made Martin look guilty. They had to have access to your apartment and they were smart."

"Or it was just Martin doing all of those things." Sam sadly pointed out.

Danny thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. "I know that you don't want to hear this, but the more I think about it, the more I think that Martin was set up."

"In what, some really elaborate plan to make him look guilty?" Sam asked. "You're right that I don't want to believe he's the one behind it, but look at the evidence Danny. It all points to him."

"But he has no real motive and doesn't seem to have any knowledge of the website." Danny pointed out. "How do you explain that?"

"I can't." Sam sighed. "I just want to know once and for all who was behind this whole thing."

"I promised you that I would track them down, and I will—no matter how long it takes." Danny assured her, placing a comforting hand on he shoulder. "Then once I find out who it was, I'll make sure they pay for it."

"Thank you Danny." She gave him a small smile.

"No problem." He smiled back. "I'll get to the bottom of this."

"I'm sure you will." Sam nodded.

He hated to have to bring this subject up, especially at work, but felt that Sam needed to know what was going on. "I also have something else I need to tell you."

"About the project?" She asked using the codename they had adopted for his sleuthing.

"No, actually." He shook his head. "This has nothing to do with the project."

"Then what's it about?" She was clueless about what he wanted to tell her and just hoped it was something good.

"Well…see…it's just that…"

"Danny, you're kinda stuttering. Is something wrong?"

"I checked into your step father, mostly just out of curiosity." He admitted.

"You checked into him?" She asked. "What does that mean?"

"I wanted to make sure that he was still in prison and not up for parole anytime soon." He explained.

"Well of course he's not up for parole. They would have notified me if he was." She looked at his face and saw what he was about to say. It was written all over his face. "They would have notified me, right?"

He slowly shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Apparently he was up for parole a few weeks ago and they granted it."

"They what?" She yelled, grabbing the attention of the entire office. Embarrassed, she bowed her head and looked down at the floor before lowering her voice down to a whisper. "They couldn't have. How could they do that?"

"I'm sorry Sam." He could see that this was hurting her, but she needed to know. "I just thought that you should know."

"So he's out there running free right now?" The thought of him living his life as a free man, able to do whatever he wanted and terrorizing someone new made her stomach churn. Then it hit her. What if he decided to come looking for her?

"Well part of his parole is that he has to stay in Wisconsin, but yeah." Danny informed her.

"If he wants to pay me a visit, his parole won't matter to him." Sam replied, entering a sort of trance where she thought about all of the possible ways this could turn out. It was possible, however unlikely, that her stepfather would leave her alone and not come looking for her.

But it was even more likely that he would look for her, and knowing Tom, he wouldn't stop until he found her. After all, he had a promise to keep.

_Sam entered the prison visiting room, cringing when she heard the steel door close behind her. Once she saw Tom being escorted into the room, she walked over to the glass partition separating them and sat down. _

"_Do my eyes deceive me or has my loving stepdaughter come to see me?" Tom smirked. _

"_I only came here to say one thing to you, something I didn't want to say when we were in court because I didn't want it to go on the record." Sam replied, somehow keeping her composure even though she was anxious and slightly scared of being in the prison. Even though Tom was on the other side and couldn't hurt her physically, she knew that he was aware of at least a dozen things that could hurt her emotionally. _

"_What'd you want to say to me sweetheart that you couldn't say in court?" Tom stared at her, looking her up and down. "You want to tell me how much you'll miss our late night rendezvous? How much you'll miss our quality time together?" _

"_No." Sam laughed, determined not to let him bother her. She was stronger than that, at least she kept telling herself that. "I'll never miss that. I'd rather have all my teeth pulled out with rusty tools and no anesthesia than spend quality time with you." _

"_Well I'm sure that could be arranged." Tom smirked, unfazed by her comments. "Once I get out of here, I'll be sure to look you up."  
_

"_You're never getting out of here." Sam bragged. "Even if by some miracle you get a parole hearing, I'll be there testifying to make sure that you spend the rest of your life in this prison." _

"_Promises, promises, promises." Tom shook his head. "You never were very good at keeping promises Sammy. But then again, you're not very good at anything and not worth much. Maybe by the time I get out of here you will have met a man that will teach you a thing or two about sex. God knows I tried but you are just horrible at it." _

_She closed her eyes for a moment, channeling her anger into something more productive. She wouldn't let herself be dragged down by him again so she just ignored his last comment and pretended that it hadn't affected her. _

"_I came here today to let you know that your rein of terror on my life is over now. As soon as I walk out of that door you will be nothing but a bad memory for me. You can't control me anymore and you never will again. You're going to rot in here for the rest of your life while I am going to go out those doors and live a wonderful life. And you know why it will be wonderful? Because you won't be in it." _

"_That's a pretty speech." Tom praised, clapping his hands together. "I almost believe you. But not quite. It lacked true conviction." _

"_It doesn't matter if you believe me." Sam told him. "It's the truth, and now that I've told you, I can leave." _

_He waited until she got up and turned to leave before speaking one last time. "I hope you do realize that I will get out of here, and when I do, I will come looking for you. I promise you that. We have some…unfinished business to take care of."_

_She didn't say anything to him or turn around. She simply knocked on the metal door and waited for the guards to let her out. _

"Sam?" Danny waved his hand in front of her face. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah." Sam replied unconvincingly. "I'm fine."

"No you're not." Danny saw through her lie. "Maybe I shouldn't have told you…"

"No, you did the right thing." Sam assured him, still in a trance-like state. "I needed to know that he is out there."

"You don't really think he's going to try and come after you, do you?" Danny didn't want to believe that Tom would come after Sam, but could understand that Sam would be worried about it.

"Oh I know he will." She told him. "It's just a question of when, where and how."


	15. Moving On

A Fool To Think

Chapter Fifteen

Martin stood on the balcony of the office building, looking at the sunset. Occasionally his eyes would drop down and he would look at the people who were milling around, living their lives. But mostly he was staring at the sunset.

He was growing weary of this game he was playing with Sam. She obviously didn't want to have anything to do with him. That was evident by the fact that they couldn't even have a real conversation together.

Whatever she thought he did to her must have been really bad, but no matter how hard he tried to think of what he could have done to her, his mind drew a blank. He never cheated on her—never even came close. His bachelor party consisted of him getting together with a bunch of fraternity brothers, drinking beer and playing poker. He never lied to her and always tried to treat her like a queen.

So why was she so mad at him? And why would she believe that he could do something bad to her? Didn't she realize how much he loved her? Or did she just not care? Either way, he was tired of this whole thing.

Even though he had been trying to tell himself for a long time that he was going to get over her and move on with his life, really move on with his life, this time he was serious. He would get over Samantha Spade if it was the last thing he did.

There was a woman he met last weekend that seemed interested in him. She seemed like the exact opposite of Sam, so that was a plus. He thought back to how they met.

_Martin went into the café to get a cup of coffee. He always got a cup of coffee after a morning run. Usually he went to a different café, but this one just opened a few months ago and he wanted to try it out just to be different. On his way out, a woman bumped into him, spilling his entire coffee onto his clothes._

"_I am so sorry!" The woman exclaimed. "I really didn't see you there." _

"_That's ok." Martin replied, frowning when he saw the coffee on his shirt and pants. _

"_No, it's not." The woman shook her head. "I should have been watching where I was going. But now I've ruined your clothes." _

"_Oh, well they're not ruined." He smiled. "They're just stained. I'm sure they could be washed and the coffee may come right out." _

"_I doubt that." The woman smiled back. "I still have coffee stains on clothes I had in college that never came out." _

"_Well then I guess it's a good thing that these aren't my favorite clothes." Martin chuckled._

"_Why don't you let me give you money for new clothes?" The woman offered. _

"_That's not necessary." Martin shook his head. "It was an accident. Don't worry about it." _

"_Can I at least buy you another cup of coffee then? It's the least I can do since I made you spill yours."_

"_That would be nice." Martin agreed, following her to the counter. _

_While they waited for their coffee, the woman turned to him. "My name's Caroline."_

"_I'm Martin. It's nice to meet you." He shook her hand and took a closer look at her. She was average height, with shoulder-length light brown hair that framed her face. She wasn't a supermodel, but she was fairly attractive and had a nice smile. _

"_I haven't seen you in here before." She commented. _

"_Oh, well that's because this is the first time I've come in here. I jog past it everyday but this was the first time I've stopped in." Martin explained. _

"_And I've probably ruined your first impression of this place. Now you'll probably never want to come back again." She laughed. _

"_It would take a lot more than you to ruin this place for me." Martin smiled. Their coffee was ready so he grabbed them and handed her coffee to her. "Thank you for the coffee." _

"_Well it was the least I could do." Caroline told him, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a business card and gave it to him. "I know this sounds forward and I don't usually do this, but maybe if you're interested sometime you could give me a call and we could go out sometime." _

_He took the card and looked at it. "You're in real estate?" _

"_Yeah." She nodded. _

"_Well as nice as you seem, I'm not sure I'm ready for a relationship right now." Martin decided to tell her the truth instead of lying and telling her that he wasn't interested. She seemed like she would be a lot of fun to go out with. _

"_Oh." The smile on her face faded slightly. "Well if that ever changes, give me a call." _

"_I will." He nodded. "But I should get going."_

"_Yeah. Me too." She smiled. "I'm sorry again about bumping into you like that." _

"_It's ok." He laughed. "Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime." _

"_That'd be nice." She waved to him as they went on their separate ways. _

Maybe he needed to just get out and actually try to have a good time instead of what he was doing now. Now he was simply dating a woman once, comparing her to Sam and dumping them when they didn't measure up. Maybe it was time to take Sam off the pedestal he had placed her on. After all, a future with her doesn't look possible.

Maybe this date with Caroline tonight was just what he needed to get over Sam once and for all. Maybe she could help him forget and move on.

* * *

Inside the office, as Sam was getting ready to go home, she saw Martin standing on the balcony alone. He looked like he was deep in thought about something and she debated whether or not to go out there and try to talk to him. 

A part of her wanted to go out there and talk to him but then there was another part that just wanted to go home, grab some Chinese take-out, relax in a warm bubble bath and wake up when everything in her life was better. She had made up her mind to go out and try to talk to Martin when Danny came rushing towards her.

"You have to look at this!" Danny exclaimed, shoving some papers in her hands.

"What am I looking at?" Sam asked, scanning the papers. "This doesn't make sense to me."

"Look at this right here." Danny pointed to a highlighted part. "These are the papers from the domain registry that I had sent over."

"Ok." Sam read the highlighted part of the papers and saw that, according to the registry, the website was registered to a Martin Fitzgerald. She closed her eyes and then opened them again, re-reading it again. But it still said the same thing.

She glanced over her shoulder to where Martin was standing on the balcony. "So now I have actual, real proof. That son of a…" She started to walk over to the balcony to confront him but was stopped when she felt Danny's arms on her, pulling her back.

"Wait a minute." Danny told her.

"Why?" Sam asked. "This shows that Martin is the one behind the whole thing. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go over there and confront him about this."

"Because you haven't taken a look at the other papers." Danny told her.

"What are these other papers going to tell me that I don't already know?" Sam sighed. "I don't want to believe it was Martin but look at this!" She waved the registry paper in front of Danny's face.

"I know, and I thought the same thing when I first saw it. But the company sent over everything they had on the registration and the website. I think you need to take a look at the other papers I gave you." Danny suggested.

"Fine." She didn't want to fight with Danny. If he thought she needed to see it, then she'd take a look at it. She placed the registry paper on her desk before scanning the other documents. "Is this for real?" She finally asked after reading and re-reading the papers.

"Yes. I double-checked it with the company. It's for real." Danny assured her. "The company always asks for a copy of the person's driver's license to prove that they are over the age of eighteen. And this is a copy of the credit card used to pay for the website."

"Both belong to Alex Silverman." Sam whispered.

"And that's the same Alex Silverman, right?" Danny asked, wanting to make sure that really was the guy from Sam's past.

"Yeah." Sam nodded, trying to process everything. These papers proved that Martin wasn't behind the website and that Alex just somehow framed him to take the fall. It meant that she was wrong to blame Martin for all these years. It meant that she left Martin, the only man that had ever truly cared about her, for nothing.

Martin came back into the building from the balcony and saw Sam and Danny standing next to Sam's desk. "Goodnight." He said with a small smile.

"Goodnight." Danny replied.

Sam took one look at Martin and felt sick to her stomach. Every decision she had made since the night she found out about the website was based on false information. She pushed Martin away because she thought that somehow he had fooled her into believing he was a good guy when he was a bad one instead.

She had proof at the time though and she thought that she was right in her accusations. She had always thought that Martin was the one who had ruined her life by betraying her privacy. But he wasn't. Martin wasn't the one behind the website and she had ruined her own life.

"Excuse me." She managed to get out before running to the bathroom to get sick.

Out of routine, Martin asked, "is she ok?"

"I don't know." Danny replied honestly, watching Sam run away. He knew this had to be hard for her to find out that she had been wrong about something so important for so long.

"Well, see you Monday." Martin turned and left to pick up Caroline for their date.


	16. Alex Silverman

A Fool To Think

Chapter Sixteen

Danny pulled the car up to the small house and turned off the engine. He had tracked Alex down to a house in Connecticut and insisted on coming with Sam when she decided to go visit him. "Are you ready for this?"

"I don't know yet." Sam replied honestly, staring at the house.

"You don't have to do this right now." Danny told her.

"Yeah I do." Sam objected. "I have to confront him about what he's done."

He undid his seat belt and started getting out of the car. "Then I'm coming with you."

"No you're not." Sam commanded, raising up her hand and making him stop. "You're not coming in with me."

"Why not?" Danny asked, slightly hurt that she didn't want him there.

"Because this is something that I need to do on my own." Sam explained. "Look, I am forever indebted to you for helping me out with this. I don't think you will ever know how much your friendship and support means to me. But this…this is something that you can't help me with."

"But what if he tries something?" Danny asked.

"I'm a federal agent now." Sam smiled. "I can handle myself."

"I'd just feel better if I came with you." Danny admitted.

"I'll be fine." Sam assured him. "Please just stay in the car?"

"Fine." He sighed, knowing that fighting with her wouldn't get her to change her mind about this.

"Thanks. I won't be too long." She unfastened her seat belt and stepped out of the car. Walking across the street to get to the front door was tricky because her legs felt like they were turning into jelly. She mentally chastised herself for letting him have that kind of effect on her.

The house was in a fairly nice neighborhood and looked like it was well taken care of. The smallest of the houses on the block, it was a two story, red brick building. The welcome mat at the front door was a simple black rung with welcome printed on it. Taking a deep breath, Sam pressed the doorbell and waited for whatever was on the other side of the door.

A middle-aged woman that was probably in her late thirties answered the door with a cheery smile on her face. "Hello? Can I help you?"

"I'm sorry." Sam apologized. She wasn't expecting to find a woman here. Danny's search on Alex didn't show that he was married. Taking a step back from the door, she made sure that she was at the right house. "Maybe I have the wrong house. I was looking for Alex Silverman."

"Oh no." The woman assured her. "Alex lives here. I'm Suzanne. I'm just the live-in nurse."

"Live-in nurse?" Sam questioned.

"Yes. For Alex." Suzanne explained. "Are you a friend of Alex?"

"I went to college with him." Sam replied. "I'm Samantha Spade."

"It's nice to meet you Samantha. Please come in." Suzanne stepped away from the doorway so that the guest could enter. "Alex doesn't get many visitors. He'll be really happy to see a familiar face."

"I wouldn't bet on it." Sam mumbled.

"So you didn't know that he is sick?" Suzanne asked.

"No." Sam shook her head. "I haven't talked to him in a long time. What does he have?" She almost felt bad for hoping it was something painful.

"He's been having a lot of kidney problems which has progressed into end-stage renal disease."

"Is it really serious?" Sam questioned. She hated to be the type of person that would hope for someone else's suffering, but couldn't help it. Alex wasn't a good person.

"I'm afraid it's very serious." Suzanne replied. "He's been put on the transplant list but it's already been three months and he's no closer to getting a new kidney. He's been on dialysis for about six months now but that's not a permanent solution. Without a transplant he won't be able to live."

"I see." Sam tried to seem at least a little sad about the news in front of Suzanne because she didn't want to seem like a heartless person. But on the inside she was kind of pleased to know that Alex's life was also in ruins. Like they say, misery loves company. "Can I see him?"

"Yes, of course." Suzanne replied. "He's upstairs in the first door on the right."

"Thank you." Sam gave the woman a small smile before slowly climbing the stairs. She could do this. She could confront Alex—especially now. When she reached the first door on the right, she knocked softly.

"Come in Suz." Alex called from the other side, assuming that it was his nurse.

Sam opened the door. "It's not Suzanne."

Alex looked over at the doorway and his eyes widened when he saw who was there. He thought he recognized that voice and seeing her only confirmed his suspicions. "Samantha." His voice barely came out as a whisper.

"Good. I see that after all these years you still remember me." Sam replied, closing the door behind her and leaning against it.

"How could I forget you?" Alex asked nervously. He could only think of one reason why she would be coming to see him and was afraid that she finally knew the truth.

"I suppose it would be fairly hard to forget someone after you completely ruin their life." Sam pondered.

"Look, I was a different person back then…"

"Save it." Sam cut him off. "I don't want to hear any pathetic attempt to apologize."

"But I am sorry." He rambled on. "After getting sick I realized how wrong I was to do that to you. I was just so angry with you and Martin for what you did to me and I wanted to get back at you two…"

Sam interrupted him. "So you planted video cameras in my apartment and sold the videos on the Internet, framing Martin so that I would think he did it and break up with him? You made me lose faith in the one person who I trusted with my life."

"In my mind it was a fair exchange." Alex explained. "You two got me kicked out of college. College was the one thing I cared about most in this world. I thought if I could ruin your relationship, if I could ruin the one thing that you two cared about most in this world, then we'd be even."

"First of all, Martin and I didn't get you kicked out of college." Sam told him. "You did that yourself when you raped those other girls and tried to rape me. And secondly, we're never going to be even. Not only did you violate my privacy and exploit me in a way that is disgusting and illegal, but you framed an innocent guy and made me believe that the man I loved and trusted was a monster."

She closed her eyes and shook her head as she paced around the small bedroom. "What you did is inexcusable and unforgivable on so many levels. You're a stunted piece of slime who deserves every bad thing that happens to you."

"I know." Alex replied.

"I have to know though. How? How did you do all of this? How did you manage to frame Martin so well?"

"It wasn't easy." Alex told her. "It took a lot of time and planning, but I had plenty of time since I wasn't in college anymore."

"How did you get the cameras in my apartment?" Sam asked.

"I kept track of yours and Kelly's class schedule, and one day when I was certain that you were in class but Kelly was in the apartment, I paid a guy to act like a repairman. I had him tell Kelly that he was hired by your super to do some maintaince work in your bathroom." Alex recalled the whole scheme, which he had considered to be brilliant.

"I made sure that the guy came to your apartment at the perfect time so that Kelly had no choice but to leave for class right after he dropped by. So once Kelly was out of the apartment, I slipped in and set up the cameras."

"And you put them in gifts that Martin had given me." Sam reminded him.

"Yeah. I thought that once you found out about the website, you would try to figure out where the cameras were and you'd figure that Martin had given you the presents with the cameras already in them. I thought you wouldn't consider the possibility that the cameras were added in at a later time."

"And then you set up the website and made that look like it was created by Martin." Sam pressed him for more explanations.

"Yeah. That wasn't too hard. I just registered the website under his name and spread around rumors that he was the one that set it up. That was the easy part." Alex told her.

"How did you make sure that I found out about it before the wedding?" Sam asked out of curiosity.

"I paid some guys to call you and harass you about it." Alex explained. "Are you going to turn me in to the police?"

"I'm not sure." Sam confessed. "It depends on when the statute of limitations runs out. If it's possible, I am turning you in. You need to pay for what you've done to Martin and myself."

"I know I don't have the right to ask you this, but can't you please not turn me in? I mean, look at me! I'll probably be dead in a year anyway." Alex pleaded.

"If I actually cared about that, I might be moved to just say ok let's forget about it." Sam replied in a harsh tone. "But I don't care about your sickness and I don't care about you. Any compassion that I would normally feel for someone in your position doesn't apply to you because you don't deserve compassion or kindness."

"You have caused so much damage here and I don't really care if you're sorry or not. Now that I have solid proof that you are the one behind the whole thing, I can't just let you get away with this."

"What kind of proof do you have?" Alex asked, confused. He thought that he had covered his tracks pretty well.

"I have a paper trail that leads straight to you and I have this." She pulled a small tape recorder out of her purse.

"You've been taping me?" Alex asked, becoming furious with her.

"Yes." Sam smirked.

"You bitch!" He angrily shouted.

Sam laughed. "What's wrong? You don't like being taped without your knowledge or permission?"

"No I don't!" Alex yelled. If he had the energy to get out of bed, he would try to get the tape back from her.

"Well just image what it as like for me when I found out that you had been taping me without my knowledge or permission and then selling it to strangers." She pointed out. "Goodbye Alex." Without another word, and ignoring his pleas to come back, she exited the room and then headed back to Danny's car.


	17. Raincheck

A Fool To Think

Chapter Seventeen

"So how did it go?" Danny asked once Sam got back into the car.

"Ok I guess." Sam shrugged, rewinding the tape in the tape recorder and pressing play. She wanted to make sure that the machine recorded the whole conversation. When the sounds of her voice and Alex's filled the car, she turned it off.

"You recorded the conversation?" Danny asked, slightly impressed and curious at the same time.

"Yeah." Sam nodded, looking over at him.

"Why?"

"Many reasons, actually." Sam explained. "First of all, I now have a complete confession from him so that when I go to the police I have solid proof. Secondly, I wanted to show him what it was like to be tape recorded without his permission since he did that to me. And third, I wanted to have it for when I go talk to Martin. I figured that if he doesn't believe me then I can just play the tape for him."

"And just when are you planning on talking to Martin?" Danny asked. He knew that she was trying to put it off as long as possible because she was afraid of his reaction. He had told her about the proof on Friday night. It was now Sunday afternoon and she still hadn't talked to Martin yet.

"Today." Sam replied. "Do you think you could drop me off at Martin's building once we get back to the city?"

"Sure." Danny agreed. "I'd be happy to."

"Thanks." Sam smiled. Talking to Martin wasn't going to be easy. She just hoped that he would listen to her.

"It's not going to be easy." Danny told her once they were on their way back.

"I know." Sam nodded. "But I have to try."

He knew that it would be difficult for Sam to talk to Martin about what had happened and knew that it would be hard for Martin to hear about it. He just hoped that Martin wasn't too mad at her. After all, the evidence did point to him and not Alex. It was an honest mistake for Sam to make.

But would Martin see it that way? That was the question in both his and Sam's minds.

"Do you think he'll forgive me?" Sam asked after being silent for over a half hour. She had been going over what she planned on saying to Martin when it occurred to her that he may not forgive her for this. She left him at the alter, which must have been painful.

"I honestly don't know." Danny told her.

A few minutes later she asked him another question. "Would you forgive me if you were in his shoes?"

Danny chuckled. "I honestly don't know."

She snorted. "You're a big help."

"I'm sorry. I just am honestly not sure what I'd do in his position and I have no idea what he's going to do. He could be so happy that you're actually going to talk to him again that he takes you back without hesitation or he could push you away. There's a whole wide range of reactions he could exhibit."

"Yeah." She had to prepare herself for the possibility that Martin would want to have nothing to do with her.

"I didn't want to tell you this," Danny paused, "but Martin had a date last night."

"A date?" Sam was surprised, although she shouldn't have been. Martin was a very attractive man. He probably had a lot of women trailing after him.

"Yeah and he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it." He hated having to be the one to tell her about it but figured that she needed to know.

"Oh." She wasn't sure what to say about that. "Well thanks for telling me."

"I just didn't want you to be caught off guard if he told you about it." Danny explained.

"It's ok if he had a date." Sam tried to convince both herself and Danny. "I mean it's not like I have any claim on him. I can't stop him from dating someone."

"It's going to be ok." Danny assured her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah. Of course it will." Sam smiled, trying to believe what she was saying.

* * *

When they got to Martin's apartment building, Danny let Sam out in front and then drove off. It was now or never. She was already here and couldn't chicken out. This was important and she couldn't back down. 

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she climbed up the stairs to get to his third-floor apartment. She walked slow, partially because she was afraid of the reaction she might get from him and partially to give her more time to think of the best thing to say once she got there.

What should have been a minute walk up the stairs ended up being a five-minute trek, but she eventually found herself at his door, knocking and waiting for him to answer. When he didn't answer her first knock, or her second, she realized he wasn't home.

She stood there wondering what to do next. She could either stay and wait for him or just come back later. While still deciding what to do, she heard his unmistakable voice coming from the stairwell. It was accompanied by a female voice that she didn't recognize.

"I don't care what you say." Martin laughed. "That movie was good."

"I didn't say it wasn't good." Caroline argued. "I simply said that the special effects were horrible. The plot was interesting and the actors were talented. But the movie studio should have done better with the special effects. It looked like something that would have been made in the eighties."

"Ok. Point taken." Martin relented. "The special effects looked horrible. It shouldn't take me too long to change clothes and then we can head out to dinner."

"I'm sorry that I spilled my soda on you." Caroline apologized.

"That's ok." Martin laughed. "But I'm starting to develop a complex. This is the second time you've done that to me now."

"I'll try to also make it the last time." Caroline promised.

The last thing that Sam wanted to do was be standing at Martin's door when he came back with Caroline, but didn't really see anywhere for her to hide. Looking around, she didn't see anything that she could duck behind or any other way out of the hallway. There was going to be no avoiding Martin and his new girlfriend.

"So where do you want to go for dinner?" Martin asked as he led Caroline up to his apartment. He was getting his keys out of his pocket when he saw Sam standing by his door. "Samantha? What are you doing here?" She was the last person that he expected to see at his doorstep.

"I um…" She vowed not to chicken out of this. "I need to talk to you."

"I'm kind of busy right now." Martin pointed to Caroline. "Can't it wait until tomorrow at work?"

"No." Sam shook her head. "I don't think it can."

Martin looked at Caroline, who was looking at the two of them with interest, and then glanced back at Sam. "Um, Caroline, this is Samantha. She's a co-worker of mine."

"It's nice to meet you." Caroline smiled, holding out her hand.

Sam reluctantly shook the woman's hand. "Nice to meet you too."

"What's so important that it can't wait until tomorrow?" Martin asked impatiently. He didn't see why he should drop everything and listen to her now that she finally seemed like she wanted to talk. He had been wanting to talk to her for weeks now and she rebuffed him every time.

"I'd rather not talk about it in the middle of your hallway." Sam told him. "It's sort of personal."

"You know, Martin, why don't I take a rain check for dinner?" Caroline suggested. "Then that will give you and Samantha a chance to talk."

"Maybe I don't want to have to settle for a rain check." Martin told her. "I think whatever Samantha has to tell me can wait until tomorrow."

Caroline took one look at Samantha and shook her head. She was good at reading people and could read Samantha well. She could see that this woman had something important on her mind. "I think you should talk to her. We can go out to dinner some other time."

"Promise?" Martin grinned.

"I promise." Caroline smiled back, kissing his cheek.

"I'll call you later." Martin told her.

"I'd like that." Caroline replied. "It was nice to meet you."

"You too." Sam called after her, watching as Caroline disappeared around the corner and started walking down the stairs.

Once Caroline was gone, the smile that was on Martin's face morphed into a look of annoyance and anger. "Ok. Now that you've completely ruined my evening, what's so important that couldn't have waited until tomorrow?"

"You're not going to make this any easier for me, are you?" Sam guessed with a slight chuckle.

"Make what easier?" He asked.

She looked him straight in the eyes and said, "my apology for everything that I've put you through."


	18. Please Forgive Me

A Fool To Think

Chapter Eighteen

"Your apology?" Martin repeated, not really believing her. This whole situation of her coming to his apartment was odd and he couldn't help thinking that this was some kind of trick.

"Yes, my apology." Sam looked around the hallway.

"Why are you apologizing?" Martin asked, suspicious of her.

"May I please come in?" She asked hesitantly. He seemed to be in a really foul mood. It crossed her mind that maybe now wasn't the best time to talk to him after all, but dismissed that idea. She had to talk to him now. "I really don't want to talk about this in your hallway."

He stared at her for a few minutes, trying to decipher whether she was being sincere or not. With a sigh, he unlocked his door and motioned for her to go in first.

Sam quickly entered the apartment, realizing that if she didn't hurry he might change his mind and leave her standing alone in the hallway. Taking a quick look around, she couldn't help smiling at the décor of the apartment. Everything from the couch to the items on the bookcase seemed to illustrate Martin's personality perfectly.

"Nice place." She commented as she heard him close the door.

"I like it. That's all that matters." He gruffly replied, staring at her back. "So why are you really here?"

"I already told you. I came to apologize. I haven't been nice to you and I haven't been very fair to you either. I've hurt you because of something I believed you had done to me."

"You know, I'm not even sure I want to hear this anymore." Martin interrupted her speech. His statement caused her to turn around and look at him with a confused face.

"I'm moving on Samantha. I'm getting past you." Martin continued. "I've spent the last ten years of my life analyzing every moment we spent together trying to come up with the reason why you left me…to find the reason you are so determined that I am a bad guy. But I have come up with nothing!"

"Time and time again I have come up empty-handed. I've wasted years of my life pining for you and quite frankly I'm tired of it. I think I'm better off not knowing why you left and I don't think I care about it anymore. I don't think I can afford to care about you anymore Samantha. It's too exhausting and painful."

She listened to his words, trying to find something to say that would make him change his mind. "After everything I've done…everything I'd said to you…I guess I can understand why you feel that way. But I really think that you should just hear me out. Please?"

"Why should I?" Martin asked.

"Because I need to get this out and you deserve to hear it." She replied. "All I need is five minutes. If you still feel like you can't afford to care about me after those five minutes, then I'll leave you alone."

He thought about it for a moment and decided to let her speak. After all, what could she possibly say to him in five minutes that would change his mind? "You have fine minutes." Glancing at his watch, he noted the time. "Starting now."

"Ok." She took a deep breath to prepare herself for the fight of her life. "Where should I begin?"

"How about the beginning?" Martin suggested sarcastically.

"I guess it all began about a week before we were supposed to get married…"

* * *

Four minutes later, Sam was finishing her speech. "I know I've hurt you Martin and I will never be able to forgive myself for that. But at the time, I was really convinced that you were the one behind the website. All the evidence pointed to you and although I didn't want to believe it, I didn't know what else to think." 

"I'm used to having the men in my life mistreat me and use me. I know that's no excuse for not trusting you though. I should have trusted you. But I didn't and instead I fell into Alex's trap and helped him carry out his plan to destroy us."

"Your time's up." Martin interrupted, having heard enough. He was shocked when he heard Sam explain about the website and about how Alex was behind it but framed him for it. But he was even more shocked to hear that Sam actually thought that he was capable of doing something like that to her.

Didn't she know him at all? Didn't she know that he would never disrespect a woman like that? She should have forgotten all about the evidence and trusted him. She should have come to him about it instead of leaving him on their wedding day without any kind of closure.

A lot of things started to make sense to him though. He now understood why she was so furious with him. She thought that he was the one behind the website and hidden cameras. Many of his questions surrounding why she left him were finally answered; however, new questions popped into his head and filled the empty spaces.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing." He moved over to the couch and sat down, leaning over and putting his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry." She had managed not to cry during the entire five minutes, but now she was finding it hard to keep herself together. "I'm so sorry."

"Why couldn't you have just talked to me instead of running away?" He asked softly.

"I honestly don't know." Sam replied.

"How could you ever think that I could be that kind of person?" He asked, looking over at her. "How could you? Didn't you know me at all?"

"There was evidence…"

"Screw the evidence!" Martin shouted. "That's a cop-out Samantha and you know it!"

She jumped slightly at his sudden shouting and stared at the carpet.

"If you had truly known me…if you had truly loved me…you wouldn't have been able to think I was capable of doing that to you. I know that you have had problems with men in the past, but I thought that you trusted me. I thought that you knew I wasn't like them."

"I did!" She assured him.

"No you obviously didn't." He shook his head. "Not really at least. I'm not even sure you really loved me."

"How can you say that?" Sam asked him. "I loved you more than anything in this world. I still do."

"See I have a problem believing that." He laughed. "If you loved me that much then how could you leave me like that?"

"It was a stupid thing to do and I'll regret it for the rest of my life." She walked over to the coffee table and sat on it so that she was right in front of him.

"Leaving you was the hardest thing I've ever done. Even though I thought you were the person behind the whole website and I was furious with you, I still loved you. That's what made me so mad. I still loved you, even after I thought you did all those terrible things to me."

"But I didn't do those terrible things to you." Martin interjected.

"And I know that now." Sam told him. "I'm so sorry about everything. I just want…"

"What? What do you want from me now Samantha?" He asked with a huge sigh. "Tell me. What do you want? Forgiveness? Friendship? Do you want me to kiss you and tell you that everything's ok now? That the past ten years don't matter and we can pick up where we left off all those years ago? Is that what you want? 'Cause I don't see any of that happening."

"I know that I don't have the right to ask for anything from you." She admitted.

"Damn right you don't." He told her.

She slowly stood up, realizing that there was no way she was going to change Martin's mind right now. "I'd love it if you could at least forgive me for the way I treated you. But if that's not something you can do, then I guess I'll just have to live with that."

"I don't think I can forgive you Samantha." He told her, not looking at her. He was afraid that if he looked at her and saw the tears that were undoubtedly building in her eyes, then he would lose his resolve. He'd take her in his arms and never let her go.

That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but he wasn't ready for that. "At least I can't right now. I've spent too much of my life preoccupied with thoughts of you. I need to move on."

She closed her eyes in a vain attempt to keep the tears from flowing. But it didn't stop a few from trickling down her face. "I understand." No matter how hard she tried, her voice still trembled and she knew that she had to get out of his apartment before she completely fell apart. "I'll show myself out."

Once she closed his door, she moved off to the side and slid down to the floor. She pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head to stifle the sobs that were unable to be contained. She figured that it would be difficult to tell Martin the truth about everything, but had no idea that he would react this way and be so angry.

She kept telling herself that he had every right to be angry with her. She left him at the alter, broke his heart, accused him of being slime, and the worst part was it was all based on a lie. Her only hope was that he would eventually get past his anger and they could at least forge some kind of friendship.

She'd love to get back together with him, but realized that the chances of that happening were very slim. So she'd settle for a friendship. Anything to at least have him be a part of her life again.

He didn't say anything as she left and only looked towards the door after she was gone. There was a part of him that really wanted to grab onto her and never let go again. He wanted to comfort her over the pain that she must have felt when she discovered the website and all of the awful things that Alex did to her.

He wanted to forget that the past ten years had even existed and surround himself with her love again. But then there was another part of him that resisted that idea.

That part wanted to distance himself from Sam and keep her as far away from him as possible so that she couldn't hurt him again. He wanted to move on and find a new relationship that wouldn't carry so much emotional baggage and pain.

Right now, the side that wanted to distance himself from Sam was winning the internal battle within. But the war wasn't over yet.


	19. It Bothers You

A Fool To Think

Chapter Nineteen

The next week was tense in the office as Martin tried to avoid Sam as much as possible. He wasn't sure what to think about her anymore. While he was glad that she didn't seem to be mad at him anymore, he was confused by her new attitude with him.

Whenever he'd come in to work, she'd be there to greet him with a warm smile and then she'd try to engage him in a conversation. It was almost like she expected them to go right back to being friends now.

To be honest, he wasn't ready for that and a part of him wished she would stop trying so hard. He was used to her avoiding him and giving him the cold shoulder. So this new attitude of hers was sort of disconcerting to him.

It was like she thought that she could make up for the past ten years simply by being extra nice to him now. But that wasn't how it was going to work. He needed time and she obviously didn't seem to understand that.

It was finally Friday, which meant two whole days away from Sam and her new bouncy personality. Plus, he had a date with Caroline tonight. So things were looking good for him right now.

"Hey." Danny approached Martin's desk. "Wanna go grab some dinner with me?"

"No thanks." Martin answered. "I have a date with Caroline."

"Oh." Danny had hoped that Martin would come out with him tonight so that he could pick Martin's brain about what he thought concerning Sam and this whole situation. He knew the general summary of what happened when Sam went to explain everything to Martin. But Sam had only told her a few of the details and he still didn't have Martin's side of the story.

"See you Monday." Martin picked up his cell phone and headed out.

"Yeah." Danny nodded. "Have fun."

After Martin left, Sam walked over to Danny. "Well, I'm going to leave now too. Bye Danny."

"Bye." Danny watched her leave and called out to her. "Hey Sam?"

"Yes?" She turned to face him.

"Wanna grab some dinner?"

"What?" She asked, pretending to be shocked. "It's a Friday night and the great Danny Taylor doesn't have a hot date? How can that be?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Wanna help me out and save me from having to eat alone?"

"Sure." She had intended on going home and burying her head underneath her blanket, only coming out when Martin was ready to forgive her. But that might be a pretty long wait. So why not go out to dinner with a great friend?

"Great." Danny smiled. "Let's go. I know a great place that I don't think you've been to yet."

"Lead the way." Sam smiled.

* * *

Danny and Sam had been having a good time so far. When Sam looked up from her menu, she noticed Danny was staring at something. "What's wrong? See an old girlfriend or something?" 

"No." Danny shook his head. He saw that Sam was going to turn her head to see what he was staring at and called out to her. "You don't want to look."

"Why not?" Sam asked.

He thought about lying but decided against it. "Because I'm staring at Martin."

Sam laughed, causing Danny to look at her strangely. "I'm sorry. It's just the way you said that. You made it sound like you owned the market on staring at him and no one else in the world could even look at him. So why can't I look at Martin?"

"You can," Danny told her, "but I would advise against it because right now he's on a date."

"Oh." Sam took a deep breath and buried her head in her menu. "Ok."

"That bothers you though, right?" Danny questioned.

"No it doesn't." Sam lied.

"It's written all over your face." Danny pointed out.

"Ok, fine." Sam sighed. "It bothers me but what can I do about it? I can't go over and make a big scene. Martin's not mine anymore and he hasn't been for a really long time. As much as I hate it, I don't have any claim on him. He can go out on as many dates as he wants and I can't stop him."

"That's a pretty healthy opinion you have there." He noted.

"Yeah, well thanks." She chuckled. "I wish he would forgive me. I wish that we could get back what we used to have. But that's asking for too much with him. He doesn't want me back anymore and he apparently doesn't want my friendship either."

"Why would you say that?" Danny asked.

"Because I've reached out to him so much this past week but I keep running into a brick wall." She explained. "I wonder if that's what it felt like when he tried to reach out to me. If it is, then it's no wonder he won't forgive me."

Danny reached across the table and put his hand on her arm as a sign of comfort. "Give it some time, ok? One week isn't going to erase ten years."

"I know." Sam nodded. "So are you saying that I show keep trying or give up? I mean, Martin's over there dating."

"Yeah he's dating, but that's just because his pride is wounded." Danny explained. "Once he gets past what's happened he'll come to his senses and beg you to come back to him."

Sam laughed. "He'll beg me? Why would you say that?"

"Because he would have to be stupid to let a wonderful woman like you go." Danny smiled.

"Thanks." Sam smiled back. "I think I needed that."

"Anytime." Danny promised. "Now, let's order before I starve to death!"

* * *

"So how was your day?" Martin asked Caroline as they walked down the street to the restaurant. 

"Pretty normal actually." Caroline replied. "I think I'm extremely close to selling another house though."

"That's great." Martin grinned.

"Well it's not official yet, but the couple is very close to making an offer." Caroline clarified.

"I'm sure they'll buy it." He assured her.

"So how was your day?" She asked.

"Boring. Most of the day was spent doing paperwork." He explained.

"Sounds like tons of fun." She laughed.

"Yeah." He chuckled, opening the door to the restaurant. "Tons of fun." They were soon greeted by the hostess. "Two for non-smoking please."

"Ok." The hostess smiled before turning to a nearby server. "Can you please show this couple to table 54?"

"Sure." The server nodded. "Please follow me."

"I really like this place." Caroline told him as they walked over to their table. "I'm glad you suggested it."

"I'm glad you're glad." Martin told her, causing her to laugh. The smile that was on his face faded when he saw who was at a nearby table. Sam and Danny.

What were they doing out together? It wasn't a date, was it? No, he threw that idea out of his head. Danny had assured him that he was just friends with Sam and not romantically interested in her. But they were out together on a Friday night.

Caroline followed Martin gaze and saw Samantha sitting with a guy that she didn't know. She couldn't help but be curious about them. She had always been one of those people that can't help but be nosy. "Oh there's Samantha. Who's the guy with her?"

"Danny Taylor." Martin told her, unable to keep his eyes off the table.

"Oh that's Danny?" Caroline had heard a lot about Danny and it was nice to have a face to go along with the name. "Did you want to go say hello?"

"Um…I don't know." Martin shook his head.

"But they're your friends, right?" Caroline questioned.

"Well…" Danny was his friend. Sam was…well he had no idea what Sam was to him anymore.

"Oh, are they on a date?" Caroline asked, seeing Danny reach across the table and touch Samantha's arm. "Is that why you don't want to go over there? You don't want to interrupt them?"

"They're not on a date. They're just good friends." Martin told her, unsure if he was trying to convince Caroline or himself of that.

"Oh." Caroline shrugged. "I just thought that it's Friday night, they're at a quiet restaurant, and they look pretty cozy. That spells date to me, but if you say so. You know them better than I do."

"Yeah." Martin nodded. "And they're just friends." Right?

* * *

"I need to go to the ladies' room. If the waiter comes by for dessert orders, get me something with a lot of chocolate, ok?" Sam asked, getting up from the table. 

"Will do." Danny laughed.

Caroline got up from the table, garnering a weird look from Martin. "Ladies' room." She explained. "Be back soon."

"Ok." Martin smiled. He looked over at Danny and Sam's table to find that Sam was gone. This was the perfect opportunity to go and find out what they were doing here. "Hey." Danny slid into the empty seat that Sam had vacated moments earlier.

"Hey." Danny smiled. "Having a good date?"

"Yeah." Martin nodded. "What about you?"

"What about me what?" Danny asked, confused by the question.

"Are you having a good date with Sam?" Martin asked, trying not to sound too jealous.

Danny sighed heavily and shook his head. "Martin, man, how many times and in how many languages do I have to explain this to you? Sam and I are just friends."

"Then how come you're having dinner together tonight?" Martin questioned.

"Well if you'll recall, I asked you to go to dinner with me first. But you declined because of your date with Caroline. So I asked Sam to come with me." Danny explained.

"Why'd you choose such a romantic restaurant?"

"Because I was trying to take Sam somewhere that she hasn't been yet. She still doesn't know her way around the city very well and I'm trying to broaden her horizon." Danny explained.

"Oh." That was a very good explanation. He should have realized that Danny and Sam weren't on a date and shouldn't have jumped to the conclusion of Danny trying to woo Sam—again. But he had.

Danny laughed. "Why don't you just admit that you still care about her?"

"Because I don't." Martin lied. "I just was curious."

"No you were jealous." Danny pointed out. "You looked incredibly jealous."

"I'm not jealous though. I have Caroline and she's a great woman." Martin raved.

"I'm sure she is." Danny nodded in agreement. "But she'll never be Samantha, will she?"

"Look, I didn't come over here to talk about my past relationship with Sam. I came over…"

"You came over here to make sure that you didn't have any competition for Sam." Danny finished Martin's sentence for him. "Isn't that right?"

Martin was getting frustrated with Danny's smugness and the fact that Danny thought he knew everything there was to know about his feelings for Sam. The thing that really made him mad was the fact that Danny's statements contained some truth to them.

* * *

Sam emerged from the stall and walked the short distance to the sinks, reaching for the soap at the same time as another woman. "Sorry." She apologized, looking over. Of course, with her luck, the other woman was Caroline. 

"Hello Samantha." Caroline smiled.

"Hi Caroline." Sam gave her a small smile.

"How are you?"

"Fine." Sam replied, running her hands underneath the water. "And you?"

"Good." Caroline replied. "I'm here with Martin tonight."

"I know. I saw you two earlier." Sam replied, focusing her attention on her hand washing. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to her next question, but felt the need to ask it anyway. "Are you and Martin getting serious?"

"I don't know." Caroline answered honestly. "I think we're just having fun right now. I know I'm not really ready for anything too serious right now. I don't think he is either."

"Oh." She couldn't help but be happy with that answer. The last thing she wanted was for Martin to get serious with this or any woman.

"So are you here on a date with Danny?"

"God no!" Sam laughed. "Danny and I are just good friends."

"Oh I'm sorry." Caroline apologized. "I just thought that you two looked like a cute couple. I didn't mean to assume anything."

"Don't worry about it." Sam shrugged. "You're not the first to assume that we're dating and you probably won't be the last. But we're not interested in each other in that way."

They were both done washing and drying their hands and were headed back to their tables. "It was nice talking to you Samantha."

"You too." Sam replied with a small smile as she headed back to her table. As much as she wanted to hate Caroline for dating Martin, she found it incredibly hard.

When she approached the table, her face lit up at the sight of the dessert Danny ordered for her. It was a triple layer chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate syrup and drizzled on top. There were even chocolate sprinkles. "I knew there was a reason why you're my best friend."

Danny laughed at her reaction to the dessert. "So then it meets with your approval?"

"Oh yes, definitely." She smiled, picking up her fork and digging into the dessert. Chocolate wouldn't make her heart ache over losing Martin go away, but it would definitely distract her for a little while.


	20. Boys Code

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty

Sam looked over at Danny and saw that he was looking at her again. It was the fifth time she had caught him doing that within a ten minute time period. At first she thought it was almost funny but now she was starting to worry.

"Is there a reason you keep staring at me?" Sam asked Danny while they were doing paperwork at the conference table in the middle of the office on Monday morning. "I was eating a donut earlier in the break room. Do I still have powdered sugar on my face?"

"No." Danny shook his head.

"Are you sure?" She asked, looking at him strangely. "'Cause it wouldn't be nice to let me walk around all day with powdered sugar on my face."

"You don't have any food particles on your face." Danny assured her.

If she didn't have something on her face, then she was confused. "Then why are you staring?"

"You're a very attractive woman." Danny replied.

Her eyes narrowed. "Thanks…I think."

"I'm not trying to hit on you." Danny wanted to make that very clear. "I promise."

"Then quit staring!" She laughed. "People are going to think that we're…you know."

"I know." Danny nodded. "Martin has already asked me if we're dating a couple of times. He even came over to the table Friday night when you were in the ladies room."

"He did?" She asked, surprised by that. She honestly didn't think that Martin cared at all.

"Yeah. He was looking very jealous and thought that we were dating." Danny explained.

"Caroline cornered me in the ladies room and asked the same thing." Sam admitted. "I don't think she knows about my past with Martin though. She was way too nice to me. If she knew about it I think she would have said something to me."

"Unless she's trying to kill you with kindness." Danny suggested.

She laughed. "Nobody tries to kill people with kindness anymore—at least not smart people. Smart people know that it doesn't work."

"Maybe she's not smart." Danny offered.

"No, she's smart." Sam shook her head. "She's smart and pretty and has a sense of humor. She's everything Martin could hope for because she's not me."

"I wouldn't say that." Danny told her.

"Danny, just face it. Martin is over me. He's moved on. I hate to admit it, but it's the truth. He doesn't want me anymore."

"I don't think that's true." Danny pointed out. "I think it's a positive sign that Martin was so jealous."

"Well of course he would be jealous if he thought I was dating you. If I was dating some random guy off the street he wouldn't be jealous of them. But you're one of his closest friends. Wouldn't dating me violate some kind of boys code?" Sam asked.

Danny couldn't help but laugh. "A boys code? What exactly is a boys code?"

"You know," Sam laughed, "a boys code! It's a set of rules that boys are supposed to follow concerning women and stuff like that."

"What's in this boys code?"

"Stuff like 'don't date your best friends' ex-girlfriend." Sam explained. "You mean there is no boys code?"

"There might be, but I've never heard of it." Danny laughed. "Is there a girls code?"

"Absolutely!" Sam laughed. "'Course I never really went along with the rules."

"So we have a rule-breaker on our team!" Danny teased.

"Oh shut up and get back to work." Sam playfully shoved more papers in his direction.

"Yes ma'me." Danny saluted her.

Martin watched the interaction between Danny and Sam as he came back from the break room. They seemed really close and, although Danny denied it, he couldn't shake the feeling that they were more than friends.

That really shouldn't bother him because, after all, he was determined to move on and get past his failed relationship with Sam. He had Caroline and she was a bunch of fun. He enjoyed the time he spent with her. But he was beginning to see that Danny was right. Caroline would never be Sam.

Caroline will never be able to reproduce Sam's unique laughter. She'll never have the same sparkle in her eyes that Sam has when she looks at him. She'll never have the same dry wit sense of humor that Sam has. She'll just never be Sam.

When he sat back down at his desk and placed the coffee he had gone to get down next to his phone, he felt his heart constrict. It was like his heart was placed into a vice grip and someone was squeezing it. It took him a moment to realize that his heart was physically fine. It only ached because he was missing Sam.

He shook his head to try and get thoughts of her out of his head, but wasn't having much luck. He could still hear her laughter coming from the conference table as she laughed at some joke Danny was making. The sound of her sweet laughter haunted his dreams for years.

He never really thought that he would hear it again, but now that he heard it almost everyday, he wished it would go away again. Hearing her laughter only made him want to relive the good times they shared, which in turn made him want to give her another chance. But he couldn't do that.

He couldn't give up that easily. She hurt him really badly when she left him. He loved and trusted her, yet she didn't trust him. She said that she really did love him, but how was he really supposed to believe that? She believed the worst about him.

Granted, there was evidence that pointed to him. But she should have at least talked to him about it. If she was going to leave him, she owed him that much. But he didn't get that courtesy. Instead he got a scribbled note minutes before they were supposed to get married.

It was time for another game of hypotheticals, a new game that he invented after Sam told him everything about Alex and the website scam.

Hypothetically, if he did forgive her and they started dating again, how was he supposed to trust that she wouldn't leave him again? How was he supposed to trust that she wasn't going to be constantly looking for signs that he was plotting to hurt her?

What if they got back together only to realize that they weren't the same people they were in college? What if they discovered that they really didn't belong together anymore because they had both changed so much? What if they ended up breaking up again?

He wasn't sure that he would be able to withstand that—not a second time. Going through a break-up with her was hard enough the first time. A second break-up was something that he thought might really hurt him beyond repair.

On the flip side, what if they got back together and were actually happy? What if they ended up getting married and having a family together? What if they starting dating again and found that although time had changed, their feelings for each other hadn't? What would happen then?

Would she actually show up to that hypothetical wedding? Or would she leave him at the alter again?

He was so caught up in his game of hypotheticals that he didn't notice Danny had come over to his desk and was waving his hand in front of Martin's face to get his attention.

"Martin? Earth to Martin Fitzgerald. Hello?" Danny waved his hand, hoping to get Martin's attention.

"Sorry." Martin focused his attention on Danny. "What were you saying?"

"Were you daydreaming about a girl?" Danny teased.

"What do you want Danny?" Martin asked, not wanting to admit that he was thinking about Sam.

"You were!" Danny exclaimed. "You were daydreaming about a girl."

"I was not." Martin denied.

"Were too." Danny told him. "You had this dreamy, far-off look on your face. I know that face well because I have had that look many times—and all of those times I was thinking about women."

Martin sighed, knowing that Danny was going to continue talking about this until he admitted everything. "Ok fine. You win. I was thinking about a woman."

"I knew it!" Danny grinned. "So was it woman number one," he pointed to Sam's empty desk, "or Caroline, woman number two?"

"It's none of your business." Martin told him.

"So it was Sam." Danny deduced. He knew that Martin wouldn't have kept the fact that he was thinking about Caroline a secret from him. He would have been happy to say that he was thinking about his new girlfriend. The only woman that he would be reluctant to tell him that he was thinking about was Sam.

"It doesn't mean anything." Martin told his friend.

"What doesn't mean anything?" Sam asked, appearing at Danny's side and handing him a coffee. She had only heard Martin say something didn't mean anything and couldn't help but be curious about what they were talking about.

"Well Martin was just telling me about how…" Danny started to tell Sam everything.

"I was telling Danny that the recent surge in paperwork versus actual cases doesn't mean anything. It will all even out at some point." Martin interrupted, pleased that he was able to come up with such a convincing lie on such short notice. The last thing he wanted was for Sam to know that he was daydreaming about her.

"Martin's right." Sam agreed, turning to Danny. "It all evens out eventually."

"Well I'm glad we got that settled." Danny laughed, playing along with Martin's lie. He could understand that Martin didn't want Sam to know about how he was daydreaming about her, but he loved torturing him and making him think that he was going to tell her. The look of sheer terror on his face when he started to tell Sam about it was priceless.

"Did you want anything else Danny?" Martin asked.

"Not really." Danny shook his head.

"Ok. Well we all have work to do." Martin reminded them.

"Right." Sam sighed, going back to the conference table.

Danny leaned in close to Martin's desk. "Are you actually going to do work or are you going to daydream about Sam again?"

Martin shooed Danny away from his desk. "Just go back to work!"

"Ok, ok, ok." Danny his hands up in mock defeat. "Don't have a cow man."


	21. It Couldn't Be, Right?

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty-One

_Sam ran her hand along Martin's bare chest as he slept, making sure that her fingertips barely grazed his skin._

_He groaned, keeping his eyes closed. "You're trying to torture me again, aren't you?" _

"_Me? Torture you?" She asked, feigning innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about." _

"_Sam, you haven't let me get a good night's sleep in two weeks." He pointed out. "You keep waking me up in the middle of the night, teasing me until it gets to the point that I can't go back to sleep even I tried." _

_It was true. She couldn't deny it without lying. Ever since they got back together he hadn't gotten much sleep. She'd either nibble on his ear or do something else to get him excited and then they'd go back for round two of their lovemaking. _

_He wasn't necessarily complaining. He loved the fact that Sam was his again and that they were given this second chance to be together. But he was starting to feel the effects of getting minimal sleep and Jack had already caught him sleeping at work once. He wasn't sure what would happen if Jack caught him again._

"_Well fine." She pretended to be hurt and scooted away from him on the bed. She wrapped the covers around her body tightly and made sure she was as far away from him as possible without falling off the bed. "I'll just leave you alone then."_

_His eyes opened and he scooted over to where she was, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closer to him so that they were in a spooning position. He then started kissing her neck. _

"_I thought you wanted to sleep." She reminded him. _

_He sighed, burying his head in her hair and inhaling the scent of her shampoo the same way a junkie goes after his next fix. "Ah, sleep is overrated anyway." _

Martin's eyes jerked open and he looked around at his surroundings. It was dark and he was in his bed but he wasn't alone. Looking over, he saw Caroline sleeping peacefully.

His dream shook him up inside and he slid out of bed carefully to make sure that he didn't wake Caroline up. He made his way into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Standing in front of the mirror, he took a good look at himself.

He was having a lot of dreams about Sam lately. Sometimes they would be sexual, like the one he just had. Other times they would be just simple dreams about sitting down to a big Sunday breakfast with her, talking about what was in the newspaper and helping her with the crossword puzzle.

After splashing his face with some cold water, he picked the towel off of the nearby towel rack and started drying off his face. He didn't mean to keep dreaming about Sam and wondered why he couldn't just let her go.

After all, he had Caroline now. She wasn't Sam, but she was smart, attractive, caring, and fun to be with. Shouldn't that be enough for him? Why couldn't it be enough for him?

The answer though, as much as he hated to admit it, was that he still loved Sam. That's why he kept dreaming about her and that's why even though he had fun with Caroline, he knew that their relationship would never turn into anything serious.

He doubted that he would ever be able to love her and that made him feel slightly guilty about continuing to date her. He had voiced his concerns to her over dinner last night, without mentioning that he was still in love with Sam, and had been surprised to learn that it didn't matter to her that he didn't think he could love her.

She had told him that she wasn't sure she'd fall in love with him either and was content just to spend time with him and have some fun together. While that had alleviated the guilt he felt for a short time, the guilt was creeping back into his soul and he knew that he'd soon have to break things off with her.

* * *

The next two weeks seemed to go by slowly for Sam as she waited for Martin to forgive her. She knew it would take time, and she was willing to wait as long as it took for him to feel comfortable around her again. 

As it was now though, he seemed extremely uncomfortable around her. She wasn't sure what the cause of that discomfort was. She hadn't purposely done anything to make him upset. Was he still acting weird because he thought she was dating Danny? 'Cause that was a ridiculous assumption.

She was friends with Danny, and after spending more time with him the past two weeks, she started to see him as more of a surrogate older brother than anything else.

He seemed to understand her in a way that no one since Martin had done. He listened to her rants about anything that mad her mad or unhappy, and then always made horrible jokes to lighten up the mood.

"Hey there." Danny greeted her when he came into the bullpen that morning.

"Hey." She smiled, returning her attention back to her work.

"Wanna come out to dinner with Martin and I tonight?" He asked, leaning against her desk.

"You sure that's such a good idea?" She questioned.

"Yeah. Why not?"

"Have you seen the way he's acting around me lately?" She looked around to make sure that Martin wasn't around yet before continuing. "He is uncomfortable around me."

"Well the only cure for that is repeated exposure." Danny grinned.

She laughed and shook her head. "I don't think so. Count me out. The last thing I want to do is cause Martin to be in a strange mood. Have fun at dinner without me."

"But I can't do that." Danny objected. "You're coming with us and you're going to have a good time."

She wanted to protest his order, but knew that it wouldn't do her any good. She might as well save her breath and just agree. "Fine. I'll go with you and Martin to dinner."

"Great." Danny slapped his hands together enthusiastically. The first part of his brilliant plan was working perfectly.

"But I want you to know that I'm not going of my own volition." She warned.

"Dually noted." Danny laughed.

* * *

Later that day they got a new case and Sam was sent out with Martin to go take a look around the missing person's apartment. They spent a good hour looking around but didn't find anything that could help them. "So what do you think about this case?" Martin asked her as they walked down the stairs and headed out to the car. 

"I don't know." Sam shook her head. "It seems like she has just vanished." All of a sudden she got the feeling that she was being watched. She glanced around nervously, letting her gaze settle on a familiar face. Sitting on a bench across the street was her stepfather.

"Ah shit." She whispered. She knew it would only be a matter of time until he made his presence known. Ever since Danny told her that he had been granted parole, she knew that he would come looking for her. How he found her she wasn't sure but knew that his appearance in her life would cause nothing but trouble.

He looked directly at her, making eye contact and winking while a strange smile formed on his face.

Martin heard Sam cuss and turned to look at her. "What's wrong? Did you step in something?"

"No." She replied, not taking her eyes off of her stepfather.

"Forget something up there?" He asked, gesturing to the apartment building.

"No." She shook her head, looking over at him.

"Then what?" Martin asked curiously. "You don't usually just call out random cuss words. Something must have triggered it."

She turned to point out her stepfather to Martin, but by the time she turned around Tom was gone. She searched around nearby but couldn't find him. It was like he vanished into thin air. Or maybe he wasn't really there at all. Maybe her eyes were just playing tricks on her.

Yeah, that's it. She saw someone that just looked like Tom and assumed that it was him. But it wasn't. There's nothing to worry about and everything's fine. Maybe if she keeps telling herself that she'll eventually believe it.

"Um, you know, it's nothing." She shrugged. "I just thought that I saw someone from high school that I didn't like. But it turns out I was wrong. I was just seeing things."

He wasn't sure whether or not to believe her. She seemed rather shaken up and rattled. But if she didn't want to talk to him about it, he wasn't going to force the issue. "Well let's get back to the office and tell Jack what we've found."

"Sure." Sam nodded, following him to the car. She still couldn't shake the feeling like she was being watched.


	22. You're Not Coming?

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Hey, ready to go?" Martin asked as he approached Danny that night. He was looking forward to having some time with Danny so that he could get his opinion on this situation with Sam. Although he knew that Danny would probably tease him about his interest in Sam, he felt like he needed another perspective. And who better to give that to him than Sam's new best friend?

"Actually," Danny frowned, "I'm not. I still have some more paperwork that I need to get done before I can leave."

"Oh. Ok." Martin answered. "How long do you think it will take you to finish?"

"I don't really know." Danny told him. "Why don't you and Sam go on ahead and I'll meet you there?"

"Sam?" Martin questioned.

"Yeah. I kind of invited her along." Danny replied. "That's not a problem, is it?"

"I thought that we were going to dinner, just us guys." Martin objected.

"We were." Danny explained. "But then I found out that Sam didn't have any plans for tonight and I didn't feel right about not including her. That isn't a major problem, is it?"

"No, I guess not." Martin answered, even though he was slightly annoyed with Danny for inviting Sam along.

"Great." Danny smiled. "So like I said, why don't you and Sam go on ahead to the restaurant and I'll meet you two there in about a half hour?"

"Ok." Martin sighed. He could spend a half hour alone with Sam. After all, he had been paired with her practically all day without any incidents. Of course they had been working. Now they would have to make small talk and wouldn't have work to use as a crutch.

"Hey." Sam greeted as she returned from her run to the tech room.

"Hey." Danny greeted. "I just told Martin that I have to finish this report for Jack and I'll meet you two at the restaurant. Ok?"

Sam looked over at Martin as if to ask him if he was ok with this and found that he was staring at Danny's desk, avoiding her gaze. She knew that he probably wasn't looking forward to spending time with her alone and could tell that she made him uncomfortable.

She considered backing out and telling them that she wasn't in the mood to go out and was just going to grab some take-out, but reconsidered. Danny would come to the restaurant as soon as he was done and then he could act as their buffer and would be able to make the situation less uncomfortable for Martin.

"Ok." She nodded, giving them a small smile. "You ready?"

"Sure." He nodded, following her to the elevator. But he stopped and went back to Danny for a moment. "This better not be some kind of trick."

"Trick?" Danny laughed nervously. "What kind of trick would it be?"

"Oh I think you know exactly what kind of trick it would be." Martin explained. "I'm going to be timing you. You have a half hour starting now." He looked at his watch to mark the time.

"Just go!" Danny laughed, pushing him towards the elevator.

"I'm timing you!" Martin called out as he went to catch up with Sam.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Danny shook his head. He should have known that Martin would catch on to his scheme. He had no intention of meeting them at the restaurant. As soon as he was certain that they were gone, he was going to leave for a date. Then he'd call them later and tell them that he was still swamped with work and encourage them to go ahead and eat since they were already at the restaurant together.

He hoped that if they could have a nice dinner together and talk, maybe they would be able to work out some of the problems they had. Maybe Martin would be able to see how much he misses Sam and then he'd be willing to give her another chance. Or at least see how sorry she truly is and forgive her. Either one would be nice.

* * *

When Martin and Sam got to the restaurant they managed to get a booth big enough for three since they thought Danny would be joining them. After ordering their drinks and making small talk about the menu, they soon found themselves sitting together in silence. 

Martin found it hard not to stare at her and had to focus his attention on the napkin sitting in front of him instead. He had realized that this was probably just one of Danny's good intentioned tricks to get him and Sam back together or at least to be friends again.

The chances of Danny actually walking through that door within the next eight minutes were extremely slim. So that begged the question if Martin knew all of this, why did he agree to come? Why not just back out, grab a pizza, and watch ESPN?

The answer to that was simple. As nervous and uncomfortable as it may make him, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to have dinner with Sam.

"So," Sam started to say as she searched for a topic that they could talk about while waiting for Danny. She hated even bringing this up, but didn't know of anything else to bring up. "How's Caroline?"

"Fine." Martin nodded, finding it slightly awkward to talk about Caroline with her. Without thinking, he added, "I'm thinking about breaking up with her."

"Really?" Sam really hoped that there wasn't a big smile on her face as she asked that. She was trying to be supportive about his relationship with Caroline and having a big smile on her face about this wouldn't be supportive.

"Yeah." Martin nodded, tearing off a corner of his paper napkin and rolling it up into a ball.

"If you don't mind me asking, why?" She couldn't be happier that he was thinking about breaking up with Caroline but did wonder why.

He was about to say 'because she's not you', but caught himself before it came out of his mouth. "Well I just don't think that she's what I'm looking for. For one thing, she doesn't want a serious relationship."

"And you do." Sam guessed.

"Actually, yeah I do." Martin opened up. "I want to live the married life, complete with a couple of kids and a large mortgage. I've wanted that for many years and now there's nothing stopping me from finding it."

She closed her eyes and looked down when she heard his statement. Even in college Martin was excited about starting a family. While it hadn't been such an important goal to her then, she found that she was starting to want that too.

But she had ruined her chances to have a family with the one guy that she wanted a family with. Although she tried to be optimistic, and believed that maybe they could eventually form a friendship that wasn't awkward and uncomfortable, she doubted that they would ever find a way to be together again.

And it was all because of her stupidity. She cursed herself for her behavior in the past and felt the familiar sting of tears forming. Not wanting Martin to see her cry, she excused herself to go to the restroom.

Martin stayed at the table, feeling bad about what he said because it obviously hurt her feelings. It wasn't even true because there was something stopping him from finding someone to settle down with. He still loved her. Although sometimes he wished he didn't, he did and he couldn't see that changing anytime soon.

When his cell phone started ringing, he knew it was probably Danny telling him that he wasn't coming. "Hello?"

"Hey man." Danny's voice came through from the other end of the connection.

"You're not coming, are you?" Martin asked.

"Well I still have a lot of work…" Danny lied.

"No you don't." Martin called him on his lie. "You're probably out with a woman right now, aren't you?"

"Maybe." Danny laughed. "What gave it away? The background music?"

"No. I just know you too well." Martin answered. "I saw through this little trick from the beginning."

"So then why did you agree to it?" Danny questioned. "Oh, I can answer that for you. You wanted to be alone with Sam but you were afraid to just ask her to dinner."

"I'm not afraid of anything." Martin protested.

"Ok, you were…hesitant." Danny compromised. "Anyway, the point is I have given you a perfect opportunity to talk to Sam alone and away from the pressure confines of work. Enjoy it and don't say anything stupid."

"Too late for that." Martin mumbled. "I think I've already said something that made her practically run for the ladies' room."

"Way to go." Danny sarcastically replied, sighing heavily. "Do you still love her?"

Martin was caught off guard by Danny's bold question. "What?"

"Do you still love Samantha?" Danny repeated his question.

"I don't want to talk about this…"

"Answer the question Martin." Danny demanded.

Even though Danny really couldn't force him to answer, Martin still somehow felt compelled to go ahead with Danny's request. "Yeah. I do." He replied softly. "So what?"

"So what?" Danny exclaimed. "Martin, she still loves you. She's always loved you. But she made a couple of bad and huge mistakes. And really, who hasn't? I'm sure you've made mistakes that have hurt people and you would take them back if you could, right?"

"Yeah, but…"

"I'm not finished." Danny interrupted. "Now where was I?" Martin's interruption threw him off for a moment but he soon recovered his train of thought. "Oh yeah. She loves you and you love her. Don't you think that's enough to at least try and build something around?"

"I don't know…"

"Well I do." Danny laughed. "She feels terrible about what she did to you and about not believing in you. But in your attempt to separate yourself from her, I think there's something that you've forgotten about."

"Really?" Martin asked. "And what's that?"

"You're not the only one sitting at that table whose dreams were ruined and whose heart was broken when Sam left you. Have you even thought about what she went through? Not only did she leave you behind but she also had to deal with the aftermath of Alex and his website."

Sam had told him a lot about what she went through in the months following her break up with Martin. He knew that she had a hard time dealing with the fact that she was exploited like that on the internet for anyone to see. "That took a huge toll on her and it was only made worse by the fact that she thought you were the one behind it."

"So what exactly are you saying?" Martin asked.

"I'm saying that you aren't the only victim in this mess. You aren't the only one with emotional scars. She has them too. You just have to know where to look for them. Think about it." Danny told him. "But I've got to get back to the lovely Diana, so I'll talk to you later."

"Bye." Martin hung up the phone and placed it back in his coat pocket. To be honest, he really hadn't thought about what Sam must have gone through. Maybe it was time to find out.


	23. Let's Stay Anyway

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Hey, I was beginning to think that maybe you ducked out the back and left." Martin joked when Sam came back to the table.

"No." She gave him a small smile. "There was a line."

"Oh." He picked up the napkin ball that he was rolling around earlier and spun it around on the table. "Danny called while you were gone."

"Is he on his way?" She asked, really hoping that he was. She wasn't sure that she could handle being here alone with Martin for much longer. The truth was that there was no line in the ladies' room. She had simply stayed in there for as long as she thought she could without making him worry.

Knowing that he still wanted to live the family life, but not necessarily with her anymore broke her heart. She was just so angry with Alex, and especially with herself, for everything that happened because of that damn website.

She had been having dreams lately, wonderful dreams that seemed incredibly real. But when she woke up and found herself alone in her bed, she always broke down in tears. The dreams were always about Martin and their children that only existed in her mind.

She'd dream that she was married to Martin and that they had a couple of kids. Usually there was one boy and one girl, and they both looked a lot like Martin—the boy especially. He always looked like a miniature Martin, just like he had when he was a child. The girl usually had blonde hair, but always had those piercing blue eyes and dimpled smile that she loved on Martin so much.

In her dream they were always happy and laughing. They were always having a good time, and she always felt complete. That's what made waking up so difficult. As soon as her eyes opened she would be hit with a sense of longing and emptiness that she had never been able to fill up. Everything she had tried to help fill the void in her heart that Martin had left never worked.

"Actually he's not coming." Martin told her.

"Too much work?" She asked.

"No. This was a set-up." Martin explained. "He orchestrated this whole situation so that we would have to spend some time alone together. He's on a date right now with someone named Diana."

"Oh." Sam replied. "He decided to go on another date with her. Good for him."

"Aren't you even a little surprised that this is a set-up?" Martin asked. She didn't seem surprised by Danny's trick at all.

"I'm not surprised that he planned this." She shook her head and laughed. "I'm surprised that we fell into his trap."

He laughed too. "I know. We probably should have seen this coming." Well he actually had, but she didn't need to know that.

"So…" She wasn't sure what to do now. She was pretty sure that he didn't want to stay and have dinner with her, and she wasn't sure if she even wanted him to right now. She was still feeling sorry for herself and mourning the loss of something that probably wasn't really hers to begin with.

"So…" He wasn't sure if she wanted to stay here and have dinner with him and wasn't sure if staying would be a good idea. But he wasn't sure that he could get up and leave her here. Danny had brought up some good points that he hadn't really considered.

He had been so involved in his own feelings about Alex's machinations and Sam's reactions to them that he had almost completely forgotten that she was a victim in this too. Like Danny said, he wasn't the only one whose dreams were ruined and heart was broken. Maybe giving her a second chance wouldn't be the worst mistake he could ever make.

"I guess we could always just pay for our drinks and go home." Sam suggested.

"Yeah, we could." Martin nodded. "Or we could just stay here and have dinner together. I mean we have to eat. Right? And we're already here."

"Yeah, but…" She wanted to find some reason to disagree with him but couldn't find one.

"So let's stay?" He asked.

"Ok." She relented. "Like you said, we might as well since we're already here."

"Good." He smiled at her.

* * *

"Was your chicken a little dry?" Martin asked when they were both almost done with the meal. They had ended up both ordering the same thing, the teriyaki chicken. 

"A little." She admitted. Most of their dinner was spent making small talk about Danny, work, or other safe topics. While she was glad that they had gotten through the meal without arguing, a part of still wished that they could talk about something more significant than the weather.

He wanted to bring up their relationship but wasn't quite sure how to do that. He had enjoyed the fact that they managed to have a nice dinner together without any kind of argument. He never really thought that would be possible. But here they were.

Sure it was awkward at times, with the shadow of their past looming over their heads like a rain cloud threatening a Saturday picnic in the park. But he thought that they had made progress by being able to spend time together outside of work without any major incidents.

"But it's good." Sam continued.

"Yeah. It is." He nodded, pushing the plate a few inches away from him. "I don't think I can eat any more."

"Oh really?" She raised an eyebrow at him and chuckled. "I'm surprised. What happened to the bottomless pit that you used to brag about?"

When they were together he would always brag about being able to eat all the time and never really become full. He'd get a huge dinner and then order dessert, always making her have at least one bite. Usually he'd get something that she really liked and he'd end up feeding her practically the whole thing.

He laughed. It had been a long time since he had bragged to anyone about having a bottomless pit, although he still was able to eat more than most of his friends and co-workers. "Well, the bottomless pit apparently has a bottom after all." He shrugged. "Who knew?"

The waitress came over to their table and smiled. "Can I interest either of you in dessert? We have a wonderful new chocolate silk pie that is great, or I also recommend the apple crisp."

Sam looked over at Martin, while Martin looked over at her. "Wanna split the chocolate silk pie?"

"I thought the bottomless pit was full." She pointed out.

"There's always room for dessert though." He smiled.

"Ok." She couldn't argue with that. Although she did eat a lot and felt full already, she couldn't really resist chocolate. Besides, having dessert with him would allow her to spend more time with him. Being in this relaxed setting with him was nice, and although there were moments where it felt awkward, there were also moments where it felt like the past ten years never existed.

"Great." He nodded. "We'll split a piece of the chocolate silk pie then."

"Ok." The waitress smiled, picking up their finished plates. "I'll be right back with that."

"Thanks." He looked over at Sam and smiled at her.

She took a deep breath and then said what had been on her mind for a while. "I've enjoyed this."

"Yeah." He nodded. "This place is nice…"

"No." She interrupted. "I mean, yeah the place is great. But I was talking about the company. I've enjoyed being here with you."

He couldn't help but grin at her comment. "It has been nice to be around you without fighting or a bunch of tension."

"I don't want to ruin the good vibe we have going here, but I do want to apologize again. I guess it's sort of a blanket apology for everything that has happened. I know you're probably still mad at me and you have every right to be. I just…"

She paused for a moment, wondering if her next question should be asked. "Is it wrong to think that this could be a good first step to becoming friends again?"

Is that all she wanted to be? Just friends? The grin left his face. He didn't want to be just friends with her. After spending the evening with her he realized just how much he really had missed her. He missed everything about her, from the way she held her fork to the way she placed her napkin in her lap.

Maybe she just brought up the whole friends thing because she didn't want to hope for anything more than that. After all, he had been giving out the impression that he didn't want any kind of relationship from her at all. Maybe she was just trying not to assume anything.

Maybe they could just start to rebuild their friendship and see where it took them. Ten years is a long time to be apart. It could be possible that they have both changed so much that they are no longer compatible. He doubted that, but it was a possibility.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that rebuilding their friendship would be a good first step to rebuilding their relationship. It would certainly be better than diving in head first.

"It's not wrong to think that way. I'd like to be friends again." He reached across the table and clasped his hand over hers.

She looked down at where his hand was holding hers and smiled. She had wanted to ask him if he could give their relationship another chance, but didn't think he would agree to that. Honestly she thought it would be hard to get him to agree to rebuilding their friendship.

But it seemed that he wanted to be friends again too, so maybe if they started out as friends again something more could develop from that. "Good." She whispered.

"So I guess now it's my turn to apologize to you." He said.

"For what?" She chuckled. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"Yeah I have." He nodded.

"No you haven't." She shook her head. What was he talking about? He wasn't the one that needed to apologize for anything. He wasn't perfect, but he definitely wasn't the one that needed to seek forgiveness.

"Yes I have." He insisted, giving her hand a light squeeze. "I haven't been fair to you." He could see the question marks forming in her eyes and decided to explain.

"When you told me about what Alex did and how he plotted to break us up, all I really thought about was how it affected me. I focused solely on how angry and hurt I was that you didn't trust me and that you left me because of what Alex did."

"I never once thought about what you must have felt when you found out about the website or even when you found out that Alex was the one behind it. I didn't really allow myself to think about how much it must have hurt you and I'm sorry about that. I know it must have been hard for you and I'm here for you if you want to talk about it."

She didn't expect him to apologize for that. She hadn't thought that his reaction was unusual. Although she had hoped that he wouldn't have been so angry with her when she told him, she had sort of expected it.

"That's really sweet of you Martin, but unnecessary. Of course you didn't think about my feelings when you found out. That's completely understandable. You were hurt and angry with me."

"That's not really a good excuse though." He countered. "I always promised you that I would be there for you and that time I didn't come through."

"It's ok." She assured him. "There were a lot of promises that we made to each other that have gotten broken."

"But I never wanted to break that one." He told her as the waitress came back with their dessert and two forks.


	24. Bother Me!

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty-Four

"If you'll excuse me, I'll be right back." Sam told him a few minutes later. They had managed to eat most of the dessert already but there was still a little left. "Ladies room again."

"Ok. But I can't guarantee that this," he pointed to the chocolate silk pie, "will be here when you get back."

She laughed. "I guess I'll have to take my chances." Unlike when she went to the ladies room earlier, she actually did really have to use the restroom. This wasn't just an excuse to get away from Martin for a few moments.

Although that was a good added benefit. Her mind was swimming with everything that had happened between them tonight. She was still surprised that they had agreed to be friends again. She really wasn't sure that would ever happen. But she was apparently wrong.

She was also surprised that Martin would apologize to her. In her mind he didn't really have anything to apologize for. She was after all the one that hurt him. Apologizing for something like that was just something that Martin did. It was endearing.

This evening had turned out better than she had imagined it would. As much as she hated to admit it, she would probably have to thank Danny for setting her up with Martin tonight. It was a nice thing to do.

On her way back to their table, she wore a smile. She felt happy for the first time in a long time. Sure, she didn't have Martin back, but she'd get him back as a friend. That would have to be enough.

She was so involved in her own thoughts that she didn't watch where she was going and ended up bumping into someone. "Oh I'm so sorry…" Her voice trailed off once she saw who it was.

"Better watch out where you are walking, Sammy." Tom smirked.

"What are you doing here?" She managed to ask, trying to portray a façade of courage and not let him see that she was actually terrified of him.

"I believe I made you a little promise." He replied, leaning in closer and whispering into her ear. "And I always come through on my promises." Without another word, he walked off, turning around a few moments later and giving her a flirtatious wave.

She stood there watching him leave, unsure of what to do. She knew that her stepfather would come looking for her and try to make good on his earlier promise but she honestly didn't think that he would be able to track her down this easily.

She could no longer try to convince herself that it wasn't Tom that she saw on the street earlier. This little encounter with him proved that impossible. Tom was back and he was definitely determined to revisit old times.

Realizing that she had been away from the table for a long time, she hurried up and joined Martin, clasping her hands together on the table.

"Are you ok?" He asked, taking in her appearance. She looked pale and was slightly shaking.

"Fine." She shrugged, not really wanting to bother Martin with her problems. They had just agreed to be friends again less than an hour ago. She wasn't about to start dumping her problems on him right now.

"I don't really believe you." He told her nicely. "You're shaking."

"Am not." She denied, knowing that he was wrong. Seeing her hands shaking on the table, she placed them in her lap.

"What happened?" He was concerned about her. He knew that she had to be really upset to start shaking. As far as he knew, there were only a few things in this world that would make her that upset.

One of them was in jail, one of them was confined to a bed and dialysis machine, and the other thing that made her shake was the sight of snakes. He doubted that any of those things were here tonight so he was clueless about what to say in order to calm her down.

"Nothing." She denied, looking at the plate sitting between them. "You didn't finish the dessert."

"I was saving the last bite for you." He admitted, not wanting to let her change the subject.

"That's nice of you." She smiled, picking up her fork and devouring the last bite of the chocolate confection. "Thank you."

"No problem." He smiled. "Now will you tell me what's going on?"

She sighed, contemplating whether or not to tell him everything. Chances were great that he wouldn't let this go until he knew the whole story anyway. Maybe getting it out in the open would be a good idea.

"I just ran into someone I knew a long time ago." She admitted.

"And I take it this person wasn't a friend." He inferred.

"No." She laughed darkly. "He wasn't a friend."

"Who was it?" Martin asked.

"It's not really all that important." She shrugged.

"It must be if you're this upset by it." He pointed out. "Look, we just said that we'd try to be friends again. Why not let me have a chance to be a friend to you? Why not trust me with what's going on?"

"Because it's not like there's anything you could do about this." She argued. "It's my problem and I have to figure out how to deal with it."

He sighed, frustrated that she kept refusing to let him help. "I bet you'll tell Danny about it though, right?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, confused by his question.

"You seem pretty close to him and I bet you'll tell him your problem, won't you?" He couldn't help but be jealous of the close friendship that she has with Danny. Danny seemed to be the person that Sam ran to when she had a problem. It used to be Martin that Sam would run to when she had a problem. He missed those days.

"He doesn't know the whole story about this." She told him. While Danny did know that Tom was out on parole, she hadn't told him about how she thought she saw him on the street earlier today or her most-recent run in with him.

"But he knows more than I do, right?" Martin questioned.

"Well…yeah." She nodded. His behavior was confusing her. One minute he's trying to be supportive and then the next he's being extremely jealous over her friendship with Danny. "I guess so."

"Why won't you trust me like you trust Danny?" Martin asked. "Why can't you just tell me what's going on?"

"Because it's not your problem anymore!" She exclaimed. "I don't want to bother you with this."

"Bother me!" He exclaimed. "Please bother me!"

Without warning she burst into a fit of laughter, which warranted a glare from him. "I'm sorry. It's just I've never had someone plead for me to bother them."

He had to admit that the way he said it might have sounded weird and chuckled before turning serious again. "I was serious when I said that I want to be friends again and being friends means that you can feel free to bother me with whatever you need."

She thought about his statement for a moment before realizing that he was probably right. "Ok. You want to be bothered? I'll bother you. The person I ran into on the way back from the ladies room was Tom, my stepfather."

He was shocked by her admission, but then her behavior made sense. Of course she would be that shaken up if she saw him. But how? How was that possible? Wasn't he supposed to be in jail? "Are you sure it was really him?"

"I'm sure." She nodded.

"But how?" Martin questioned. "Isn't he supposed to be in jail right now?"

"He got out on parole recently." Sam explained. "When Danny was helping me investigate Alex, I ended up telling him about Tom. He checked into it and found out that Tom had been released from prison for good behavior."

"I hate the justice system sometimes." Martin muttered. "How can they let a monster like him out?"

"I don't know." She shook her head.

"So he's here in New York?" Martin questioned, suddenly feeling very concerned for her safety.

"Yeah." She nodded. "He tracked me down."

"Isn't he violating parole to be out here?"

"Probably." She replied. She hadn't thought about that, but knew that Tom probably didn't care about breaking parole.

"Is this the first time that you've seen him?" Martin asked, wondering how long she has known that Tom was in New York.

"No." She shook her head. "I thought I might have seen him earlier today when we went to that apartment."

"Oh right." He remembered when they left that she had seemed distracted by something. It must have been because she thought she had seen Tom. "Has he made contact with you?"

"He just made some comment about how he always comes through on his promises and then left." She explained.

"Promises?" Martin questioned. He was trying to think of what Tom could have meant by that and then remembered the story that Sam had told him many years ago about her last conversation with Tom and how he had promised to come back for her once he got out of prison. "Sam, this is really serious."

"No it isn't." She denied it adamantly.

"Yes it is." He argued. "What if he comes after you?"

"I'm a federal agent Martin." She reminded him. "I can take care of myself."

"But…"

"Just let's please drop this?" She asked, not really wanting to waste more time thinking about Tom.

"Fine." Martin sighed. She may not want to admit it but Tom was a threat to her safety and he'd find a way to make sure that Tom never got another chance to hurt her. He'd find a way to protect her, even if she didn't think she needed protecting.


	25. I Want To Help You

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty-Five

About fifteen minutes later, the check came and they both made a move to pick it up. Martin, however, was faster than her and scooped up the check before she had a chance. "My treat." He told her.

"Why don't we just each pay for our own?" She asked.

"You're turning down a free meal?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her comment.

"I just…" She was going to argue with him about the bill but decided that it wasn't really worth it. If he really wanted to pay, she'd let him. "Never mind."

"That's more like it." He grinned. After paying with his credit card, they got up from the booth and headed to their cars. They had each brought their own car and had parked next to each other.

"Thanks for dinner." She told him as they were walking out to where their cars were parked.

"You're welcome." He replied. "It was nice spending time with you like that."

"Yeah." She agreed. Feeling bold, she added, "I've missed you a lot over the past ten years."

He stopped walking, making her stop. He hadn't expected her to admit that she had missed him and couldn't help but wonder if she only missed his friendship or the relationship they had.

"I missed you a lot too." He admitted.

She looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry for everything. I…"

"It's ok." He told her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"No it's not." She shook her head. "How can you even want to be friends with me? I was so stupid and I carelessly threw our relationship away. You're a really great guy Martin and I shouldn't have thrown you away like that. I shouldn't have doubted you."

"I'll agree that you made a mistake." He grinned. "But who doesn't? I know I made a mistake when I ordered the chicken tonight."

She smiled. "But this one was a little more serious than what you have for dinner. This one changed our entire lives."

"I know." He nodded.

"Do you ever think about what would have happened if we had gotten married?" She asked hesitantly. "Do you ever wonder what we'd be doing now? How our lives would have turned out?"

"All the time Sam." He whispered. "All the time."

Their eyes locked together and for a few moments they stood on the street just looking into each other's eyes, each trying to figure out what was going on inside the others mind.

"I'm sorry." Sam finally shook herself free of the trance that she was under while looking into his eyes. "I shouldn't have brought that up."

"Why not?" Martin asked.

"Because it's in the past and maybe it should stay in the past. Maybe you were right when you told me that you needed to move on." She replied, even though she didn't mean it. She wished the past could be the future so that she could be with Martin again. She turned to start walking again but was surprised when Martin lightly grabbed her arm.

He wasn't sure why he did it. He wasn't drunk though so he was glad of that. Maybe it was because he felt like they had just connected somehow. Maybe it was because she had admitted that she missed him. Maybe it was partially because of what Danny told him about Sam being heartbroken about leaving him at the alter too. Maybe it was just because he wanted to feel her again.

Whatever the reason, he had grabbed her arm to stop her from walking on without him. Then he closed the space between them and leaned in to kiss her. It was a soft kiss, yet packed with emotion and passion. A few seconds after it began she opened up her mouth enough for their tongues to dance together.

When he pulled away he saw an intense look of confusion on her face and would have bet money that there was a similar look on his face too. He hadn't intended on kissing her this evening. It was simply something that sort of happened.

But it was a great kiss and proved that they still had the same sexual chemistry as when they were in college. He wanted to kiss her again, but didn't want to push it.

"What was that for?" She finally asked once she could get her mind thinking about anything other than 'oh my god Martin just kissed me'.

"I…I don't know." He admitted. "I just felt like doing that."

"Ok." She nodded slowly. He was definitely confusing her. First he wants to be friends and then he kisses her like that? It's such a contradiction. "We should be getting home. It's late and looks like it's going to storm soon."

He looked up at the sky and saw that it did look like it was getting ready to storm. He didn't really want to leave her, but knew she was right. They couldn't stay standing on the street forever. "Ok. You're right. Let's go."

They started walking to their cars again and he reflexively placed a hand on her back to lead her. He wasn't even sure why he was doing it. It just felt right to touch her. He wanted to remind himself that they were just supposed to be friends and that he should remove his hand. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.

That kiss had re-awakened something in him. Right or wrong, it made him want Sam back even more.

When they got to the cars, Sam took one look at hers and groaned.

"What?" Martin asked, walking over to her car. That's when he saw that all four of the tires were slashed. "Tom."

"Most likely." Sam nodded. Although they were in New York City and there was a lot of crime that happened here, she was 99.9 certain that the tire slashing was done by Tom. "It's not that bad." She lied, trying to convince herself that everything was under control.

"See this?" He pointed to the car. "See what he did to your car? This is serious."

"It's just a car and they are just tires." She told him.

"But what if the next thing Tom comes to slash is you?" He asked.

"I have everything under control." She lied. She couldn't let herself think that Tom was going to come after her. She couldn't let the fear come back into her life. She had lived too many years experiencing that fear and it took a long time to rid it from her life. She wasn't about to start fearing him again.

"No you don't Sam. Everything is definitely not under control." He argued. But he knew that he wasn't going to be able to convince her of that right now. "Come on. I'll take you home."

"You sure?" She chuckled. "The last time you tried to take me home, I ended up walking the rest of the way because we couldn't get along."

"Yeah," He smiled at that memory. "You really hated me then."

"Well you weren't happy with me either." She pointed out.

"True." He agreed. "But now everything is different. So I don't see any reason why you shouldn't take a ride home from me."

"Ok." She relented, getting into his car. "Thanks."

"No problem." He replied. "That's what friends are for."

Friends? Is that what they were right now—especially after that kiss? What was the kiss about? It definitely wasn't a 'friend' kiss. Those never involve tongues and never evoke such strong feelings.

Without another word, she got into his car and they made their way back to her apartment. During most of the trip she was busy staring out the side window of the car, thinking about this night. It was a great night, except for the presence of Tom.

But Martin had agreed to rebuild their friendship and then proceeded to kiss her. She still wasn't sure what that was about. That wasn't a friend kiss. While she was stealing a quick glance at him, he looked over at her and gave her a grin.

"I am glad that you confided in me about Tom." He admitted. He figured the fact that he was able to get her to confess to him about that was a good thing. It meant that she trusted him and he appreciated that.

"Well, I know you." She chuckled. "You wouldn't have let me leave until you knew everything anyway. So why fight you?" After a few moments, she added, "besides, I know that you only wanted to know because you wanted to help. And I can't get mad at you for that."

"I do want to help you Sam." Martin assured her. "I'll help you in any way I can. There's no way I'm going to let this guy hurt you again."

"I appreciate the sentiment." She told him. "But trust me, if Tom is determined to come after me, he'll find a way to do it. Right now he's engaged in mind games, trying to scare me. When he thinks he's scared me enough, then he'll make his move."

"There has to be a way to stop him." Martin commented out-loud as they pulled up to her building.

"Yeah there is." Sam replied, pulling her gun out of her purse and showing it to him. "And this is it."

"I meant by legal means." Martin explained.

"The legal system refuses to see what a degenerate he really is." Sam shrugged. "They let him out of prison and they obviously can't even keep him on a tight leash with parole either. I'm sorry to say this but the police and legal system have failed with Tom."

"I agree." Martin nodded. "But that doesn't mean that they can't help."

"I don't need help." She objected, starting to get out of the car. That's when she noticed that Martin was turning off the car and unbuckling his seat belt. "What are you doing?"

"I'm walking you up to your door so that I know you've gotten home safely." He told her matter-of-factly. Before she had a chance to say anything else he added, "and don't argue. It won't do you any good."

"Fine." She sighed. "Follow me then."

He followed her up to her floor and was behind her as they walked to her door.

"The door's ajar." She whispered, looking over at him.

"Stay here." He whispered back, drawing his gun and heading into the apartment. He went through each room, checking it out thoroughly to make sure that no one was hiding. When he saw that no one was there he returned to the hallway. "Apartment's clear."

She sighed, realizing that she should have known that Tom would do something like this. It was all a part of his mid game plan. Well he wouldn't win this time. She wouldn't be intimidated or scared anymore. "Then I guess you can leave now."

"Not without you." He told her. "It's not safe here right now."

"What do you mean?" She asked with a chuckle. "Everything's fine. There's no one in there. You said so yourself."

"Sam, look." He tried to close the door and found that it wouldn't close all the way. "The door won't close, yet alone lock. I'm not leaving you here alone."

"I'll be fine." She assured him.

"Of course you will be." He grinned. "Because you're coming home with me tonight."


	26. We're Fools

A Fool To Think

Chapter Twenty-Six

"No I'm not." Sam refused, crossing her arms around her and taking a defensive stance.

"Well I'm not letting you stay in an apartment with a door that won't lock and a stepfather that is stalking you." Martin explained. "So you're coming with me."

"No I'm not." She chuckled. "You can't just order me around."

"Ok." He sighed. "Sam, will you please come and spend the night at my apartment? I'm worried about your safety here and I don't want to see you hurt."

"I can't just leave my apartment like this." She objected. "You said it yourself. The door won't close properly. If I leave, it will only take a few hours before everything is stolen."

"I'll take care of that." He promised, pulling out his cell phone. "I'll call the police and get someone to watch the apartment tonight. Then in the morning we can have someone come and fix up the door."

"You're going to involve the police in this?"

"Of course I am." Martin nodded. "You can't just sit around and let Tom get away with this. First he slashes your tires and now he's breaking into your apartment."

"But…"

"And please don't tell me that you're in control of everything and that nothing's wrong." He asked, knowing that was going to be her next comment. "I know that you don't want to admit that this is a serious situation, but it is."

"Martin…"

"Please Sam?" He asked. "Please just do this for me?"

After thinking about it for a moment, she reluctantly agreed. "Ok."

"Good." He nodded. "Why don't you go get anything that you'll need and I'll call the police?"

"Sure." She opened the broken door and went inside.

* * *

About an hour later, they were sitting on the couch in Martin's apartment listening to the rain pounding against the building. The police had taken Sam and Martin's statement and then agreed to watch the apartment until the repairman for the door came back. 

The police officer had told them that they would check with Tom's parole officer and investigate the possibility of him being in New York. But apparently they didn't believe that he was responsible for the tire slashing and break-in because there was no evidence linking him to the crimes.

"You know I tried to tell you that the cops wouldn't be able to do anything to stop Tom. They don't even believe that he's here." Sam told Martin as he flipped through the channels of the television to look for something they could watch.

"Not yet. But they will." Martin assured her.

"Yeah. They'll believe it when it's too late." Sam muttered.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you." He told her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

She let his arm wrap around her for a moment before shrugging it off and scooting farther away from him.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, confused by her behavior.

"I don't know." She shook her head.

"Well why did you pull away like that?" He asked.

"Because I'm not sure whose mind games are worse." She replied. "Yours or Tom's."

"Mind games?" He questioned. "What are you talking about? I'm not playing mind games."

"Yes you are." She exclaimed. "First you say that you want to be friends and then you kiss me like that! Then there's your whole 'I'll protect you and be your knight in shining armor' act."

"It's not an act." He sighed, knowing that the time would come when he had to explain his reasons for kissing her. Too bad he didn't really have a reason, other than he did it because he wanted to taste her kiss again. "I care about you Sam and I don't want to see you hurt—especially by Tom again."

"Ok so maybe it's not an act and you really do want to help me." She relented. "That still doesn't explain the kiss."

"No it doesn't, does it?"

"Nope." She shook her head. "Even though you mentioned that you may be dumping her, you still have a girlfriend right now and I'm not sure Caroline would appreciate it if she knew that you kissed me like that."

"No, you're right." Martin nodded. "She might not be too happy about it." Although he doubted that she would get too upset. They weren't exclusively dating. But she was a woman and women could get fairly territorial over men, even if they weren't head over heels in love with the guy.

"So why did you kiss me then?" She asked, needing to know the answer. She could deal with whatever the answer was. She just needed to know where she stood with him. His actions and words weren't matching up anymore.

One minute he seemed like he was still in love with her and wanted her back yet the next moment he was pulling away and making her see that they were only going to be friends. So which was it?

"I…" He started to explain but wasn't able to find the right words. "I don't know."

"Are we friends or something else?" She boldly asked, tired of waiting for him to explain himself. If he wasn't going to, she'd pry the answer out of him another way.

"I'm not sure anymore." He shook his head. He knew that he wouldn't be opposed to being more than friends with Sam but was now really the right time to be starting something with her again?

After all, there was a lot going on in her life right now. She had turned Alex over to the police and they were doing their own investigation into the website scheme, and now she also had to deal with the fact that her psycho stepfather was basically stalking her.

The last thing he wanted to do as add drama to her already drama-filled life. So maybe the best thing to do would be to just claim that he got caught up in the moment and ask that they pretend it never happened. The more he thought about that idea, the better it sounded.

"What does that even mean?" She asked, getting up from the couch and starting to pace around the living room.

"I don't know." He sighed, getting up and blocking Sam's path so that she was now standing in front of him. "I guess I kissed you because I wanted to. It's been a long time since we had kissed the last time and…well you were there and I was there…we'd just had a really nice dinner and I felt like we had reconnected."

"I guess I just got caught up in the moment. I saw you there and I just went for it." He reached out and grabbed a hold of her hand, not sure why he was doing that. He had just decided a few moments ago to ask her to pretend it never happened, but here he was holding her hand. He just realized that he was kind of playing mind games with her. "I'm sorry."

"So you're sorry about the kiss?" Sam asked, not sure what he was apologizing for. He was really confusing her right now because he was apologizing, but also holding on to her hand and gently caressing it with his thumb.

"No." He shook his head. "The kiss was great and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm sorry about the mind games. I don't mean to…I just don't really know what I'm doing right now."

"Well right now you're caressing my hand in the middle of your living room." She informed him with a small smile.

He chuckled. "Yeah, I am, aren't I?" He knew that he could always count on her to inject some humor into the situation. "I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I want to be friends with you but I also can't shake these feelings I have for you. They follow me around like a shadow…"

"Maybe I should leave then." She told him, removing her hand from his grasp, squeezing past him and heading to the door. "I can probably go stay on Danny's couch tonight."

It was nice to know that Martin still had some feelings left for her but she couldn't help being disappointed when he said that he wanted to be friends. After the kiss, she had hoped for more. But that was her problem. She was a fool to think that he would even consider another relationship with her again after what happened the first time.

"Please don't go." He called after her, wanting to make her stop. He wasn't done telling her everything and didn't want her to get the wrong impression. "Why go anywhere else tonight? You're already here and besides, Danny probably has company tonight."

"Oh yeah." Sam had forgotten about that. Knowing Danny, he probably was spending the night Diana. "Well I'll get a hotel room for the night."

"Sam…" He lightly grabbed her arm to stop her. "You don't have to leave."

"I think I do." She quietly told him. "I think that if I stay here it might ruin the friendship that we're trying to rebuild. Hell, maybe we're even fooling ourselves if we think that we can be friends again."

"What does that mean?" He asked, confused by her sudden attitude change.

"Face it Martin, we had some pretty intense feelings for each other back then and it ended badly. We can try and move on, pretend that they're not there and that we don't feel them, but the feelings are obviously still there. They might always be there."

She sighed, not looking forward to having to say this next part. "Since we're not going to be getting back together and we're going to just be friends, those feelings are going to make everything difficult. So maybe trying to be friends isn't possible. Maybe that's asking too much."

He knew that she was probably right. These feelings that he still felt for her were already having an effect on their friendship. But that didn't mean that he wanted to just abandon the whole cause.

"Sam, what if we…"

"Martin, I'm not sure there's anything left to say." She interrupted.

"I don't want you going out there alone right now." He told her. "Tom could be anywhere."

"I know, but I'll get a cab and go straight to a hotel." She told him. "I'll be fine."

He didn't want to let her go, but didn't know how to get her to stay either. "Can you at least call me once you get a hotel room to let me know that you're ok?"

"Sure." She nodded.

"Ok." He said reluctantly letting go of her arm.

"Goodnight Martin." She gave him a small smile.

"Goodnight Sam." He answered as she left his apartment.


End file.
